Yamada K.1, Kamei R.2, Oki Y.1,3, Fujimoto Y.1, Yamaguchi T.1,3, Mitani Y.1,4, Yamada Y.1,5, Watanabe Y.1,6, Sawada T.1, Ishikawa A.1
1Kobe University Graduate School, Department of Health Sciences, Kobe, Japan, 2Kobe University, Department of Health Sciences, Kobe, Japan, 3Kobe City Medical Center West Hospital, Kobe, Japan, 4Sapporo Nishimaruyama Hospital, Sapporo, Japan, 5Kofu Kyoritsu Hospital, Kofu, Japan, 6Doi Hospital, Ono, Japan
Background: Physical activity (PA) has been considered an important factor around the world because many studies have reported that physical inactivity or sedentary behavior were associated with all cause mortality and morbidity. Moreover, some studies have claimed that weekdays sitting time in Japanese was longer than other countries, and a majority of sedentary behavior in employees was included in PA at workplace changed by employment types. However, little study has been concerned with work-time and leisure-time PA of physical therapists (PT).
Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the daily PA of PT and identify the associated factors.
Methods: This was cross-sectional study. 29 PT working at hospital or home-visit nursing station were enrolled for the study. From July 2016 to October 2016, the evaluation parameters included age, Body Mass Index (BMI), energy expenditure (EE) as parameters of PA, the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), sleeping hours, working hours, and the Fatigue Feeling Questionnaire (FFQ). EE was measured using an accelerometer (Actigraph GT3X) and calculated using triaxial data, body weights, and the algorithm of the software (ActiLife). Other parameters were assessed using self-administered questionnaires. Participants were asked to wear the accelerometer on the hip simultaneously for 14 consecutive days, 24 hour a day. FFQ was consisted of a total 25 items to assess the fatigue of workers. Participants were asked to fill in FFQ together with a note of the time twice a day, before work in the morning and after finishing work at night. Based on the data of FFQ, days were classified into workdays or holidays, and time of workday was classified work-time or leisure-time. Pearsons correlation coefficients or Spearman s rank correlation coefficients were used to evaluate the correlation between measurements. Paired t test or Wilcoxon rank sum test were used to compare the differences. P-values of 0.05 were considered significant.
Results: 24 PT remained as analysis subjects (29.13 ± 5.42 years). Workday EE per unit time was significantly higher than holiday (22.4 ± 8.2 kcal/hour vs 18.6 ± 11.1 kcal/hour), and work-time EE per unit time was significantly higher than leisure-time (23.6 ± 10.1 kcal/hour vs 18.2 ± 6.0 kcal/hour) on a weekday. Fatigue score after work was significantly higher than before work. No significantly correlation was between work-time EE (236.8 ± 98.6 kcal) and fatigue scores, whereas a significantly moderate negative correlation was observed between holiday EE (313.5 ± 184.9 kcal) and fatigue scores (r = -0.45), and between leisure-time EE (140.5 ± 57.4 kcal) on a workday and fatigue scores (r = -0.44).
Conclusion(s): In this study, PT performed the most activity in daily living when they were working, and they felt more fatigue through working. However, the more inactivity they spent on a holiday or leisure-time, the more they tended to feel fatigue on a workday.
Implications: The result supported an importance of PA, and helped the health management to the working population, which is one of an important role of PT.
Funding acknowledgements: The authors declare no conflict of interest associated with this manuscript.
Topic: Occupational health & ergonomics
Ethics approval: This study was approved by Kobe university graduate school of health sciences ethics committee (No. 514).
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