The reliability of the Adolescent Sedentary Activity Questionnaire (ASAQ)

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Abstract

Objective

To determine the test–retest reliability of a self-report questionnaire (the Adolescent Sedentary Activities Questionnaire; ASAQ) which assesses the time spent in a comprehensive range of sedentary activities, among school-aged young people.

Method

Two-hundred and fifty school students aged 11–15 years from four primary and four high schools in metropolitan Sydney (New South Wales, Australia) completed the questionnaire under the same conditions on two occasions, 2 weeks apart during Autumn, 2002.

Results

Test–retest correlations for time total spent in sedentary behavior were ≥ 0.70, except for Grade 6 boys (Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = 0.57, 95%CI: 0.25, 0.76). Repeatability was generally higher on week days compared with week end days. ICC values for travel and social activities tended to be lower than for the other categories of sedentary behavior. There was little difference in the reliability across age groups.

Conclusions

ASAQ has good to excellent reliability in the measurement of a broad range of sedentary behaviors among young people. ASAQ has good face validity, but further validity testing is required to provide a complete assessment of the instrument.

Introduction

Physical inactivity is a risk factor for a wide range of health problems (President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports et al., 1998) so is a topic of strong research interest. There are concerns that young people are more sedentary than previous generations (Hill et al., 2003) and the development of reliable self-report measures of sedentary behavior is important for public health research.

Small screen recreation (SSR) is the primary contributor to total time spent in sedentary behaviors among young people in developing economies (Currie, 2004), but young people also engage in many other sedentary activities (Must and Tybor, 2005). Measures which are limited to television-viewing and computer use will, therefore, underestimate the time spent being sedentary. Although some instruments measure time spent in a number of sedentary behaviors, there are no dedicated self-report questionnaires that measure time spent in a comprehensive range of sedentary behaviors among young people. This study reports the test–retest reliability of a self-report questionnaire (the Adolescent Sedentary Activities Questionnaire; ASAQ) which assesses the time spent in a comprehensive range of sedentary activities, among school-aged children, outside of school hours.

Section snippets

Participants

Four primary and four high schools were selected at random from schools in Sydney (New South Wales, Australia). One class of students in Grades 6, 8 and 10 were invited to participate in the study. The questionnaire was administered on two occasions, 2 weeks apart, in each school during March/April 2004 (Autumn).

Questionnaire development

Sedentariness comprises a range of activities where energy expenditure is less than 1.5 metabolic equivalents (METs) (Ainsworth et al., 2000). As with physical activity, it is not

Discussion

Overall, the results of this study suggest that the ASAQ has good to excellent reliability and can be considered a potentially useful measure of a comprehensive range of sedentary behaviors among young people. Furthermore, there was little difference in the reliability across age groups indicating that ASAQ is not age dependent.

Reliability was generally lower for social activities, travel and, except among high school girls, on weekends. There are two reasons for lower ICCs: poor reliability of

Conclusions

ASAQ has good test–retest reliability and until better methods of assessing criterion validity are developed, it appears to be the best available tool for assessing time spent in a range of sedentary behaviors among young people outside of school hours.

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