Incidental and Planned Exercise Questionnaire for Seniors: Validity & Responsiveness

Purpose: To assess the criterion validity and responsiveness of the Incidental and Planned Exercise Questionnaire (IPEQ), specifically developed for aging research.

Methods: Community-dwelling older adults (n=318, mean age 73.2 years) who participated in a trial investigating the effect of walking program on falls. At baseline a sub-sample (n=177) also wore an accelerometer (Actigraph GT1M) for 7 days and 126 of those had ≥4 valid days of accelerometer data. Validity coefficients (Spearman ρ) were calculated between accelerometer counts/min , average steps per day, average moderate-to vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) using two cut points (760 and 1041 counts/min), and IPEQ-MVPA (the sum of hours per week derived from nine IPEQ questions, excluding indoor chores). Responsiveness was the mean IPEQ change in the intervention group divided by the standard deviation of the mean change in control group.

Results: The correlation coefficients between IPEQ-MVPA and counts/minday-1 and Steps day-1 were 0.33 and 0.31 respectively. The coefficients with accelerometer MVPA at low and medium cut points were 0.29 and 0.33, respectively, and 0.26 and 0.35 for walking. IPEQ incidental PA questions and IPEQ as a whole were significantly correlated with accelerometer light intensity (100 to 760 counts/min, ρ=0.29 and 0.23). The 12-month responsiveness of total IPEQ was 0.30 and 0.44 for the ‘planned walking’ item.

Conclusion: IPEQ is a practical valid measure of MVPA for surveillance and intervention studies. Incidental activities are mostly of a light intensity nature and their low ambulatory component may explain the lower correlation between IPEQ as a whole and accelerometer measures.