Evaluation of instruments to measure health behaviours of cardiac patients

Investigators:
Mr Michael Le Grande, Dr Peter Elliott, Dr Barbara Murphy, Heart Research Centre.

Outcomes of a cardiac illness are often difficult to measure, especially physical activity and other behavioural outcomes. A review has recently been completed of existing instruments used to measure physical activity outcomes in cardiac patients.

Regular physical activity has been repeatedly shown to protect individuals against heart disease. Hence, there is a need to monitor the amount of physical activity which people undertake. Unfortunately, many questionnaires measuring physical activity have been designed for young, fit people, which tends to limit their suitability for older cardiac patients. Indeed, evaluating physical activity in older cardiac patients is a challenge because of the need to assess many activities of short duration that may occur as part of the daily routine.

In addition, many questionnaires ask patients to recall their physical activities over a long period which presents a problem for those patients who have memory impairment. Furthermore, some questionnaires tend to be overly long which contributes to non-completion. The project involved a review of studies which measured physical activity in cardiac patients. Questionnaires were evaluated in terms of their reliability, validity, design and suitability for the cardiac population. The most appropriate questionnaires to use in future research were recommended. It is likely that a new physical activity questionnaire will need to be designed, which is more suitable and acceptable to cardiac patients than those currently available.