The Validity of the Incidental and Planned Exercise Questionnaire (IPEQ) For Sedentary in Older Adults

Introduction The Incidental and Planned Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), renamed to be IPEQ, is a self-report short questionnaire that was developed for use in ageing research. The questionnaire asks about an average week frequency and duration (closed categories) of planned exercise, walking for exercise, walking to places and chores inside and outside the home. It has shown excellent test-retest reliability, ICC=0.87 [1]. This study assessed the criterion validity of IPEQ for inactive elderly who were recruited to the “walking and Fall” randomized control trial.

Methods Community dwelling older adults (≥65 years) were recruited to the trial through advertisements. Participants were not eligible if they engaged in any exercise, including walking, ≥3 times and/or ≥90 minutes per week. At baseline a 20-minute telephone interview, including IPEQ, was conducted with all eligible participants and of those about half were also randomized to undertake a 7- day accelerometer (Actigraph GT1M) data recording. A day was deemed as valid if total wear time was ≥10 hours. Participants were included in the analysis if they had at least 4 valid days of accelerometer data. We examined two suggested cut-off points to differentiate between light and moderate intensity physical activity: Low value of 760 ct·min^-1 [2] and a medium value of 1041 [3].

Results The IPEQ and accelerometer measurements were available for 59 older people, of those 48 (81%) had ≥4 valid days. The Spearman coefficient between mean counts per day and total IPEQ score in the low and medium cut-offs were 0.16 and 0.18, respectively. The average minutes per day of at least moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) were 71 and 47 minutes for the low and medium cut-off points, respectively and the coefficients between MVPA and IPEQ score were 0.18 and 0.24 in the low and medium cut-off respectively. The correlation between walking score and steps per day were 0.42 and 0.51 for the low and medium cut-offs, respectively.

Discussion and Conclusion IPEQ walking questions showed moderate correlations with steps per day. The correlation with total IPEQ score and minutes spent in MVPA or counts per day were less good, which might have been influenced by lack of differentiation in physical activity levels in the sampled population. Coefficients were slightly better for the medium cut-off. The criterion validity of IPEQ should be tested on a larger representative sample with a range of activity levels.

References [1] Delbaere K, Hauer K, Lord S. Evaluation of the incidental and planned activity questionnaire (IPAQ) for older people. B J. Sports Med. 2009; doi: 10.1136/ bjsm.2009.060350. [2] Matthews CE. Calibration of accelerometer output for adults. Med. Sci. Sports Exe. 2005; 37:S512-S522 [3] Copland JL, Dale EW. Accelerometer assessment of physical activity in active healthy older adults. Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, 2009;17:17-30.