The relationship between physicians’ and nurses’ personal physical activity habits and their health-promotion practice: A systematic review

Background: Sedentary lifestyles are rising in many countries which has implications for global health. Health professionals are well placed to promote increased physical activity levels to their patients.

Objective: To examine the relationship between physicians’ and nurses’ personal physical activity and their physical activity promotion practices.
Methods: Cochrane Library, PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsychInfo, British Nursing Index and four Chinese databases were searched to March 2011. Extracted data were verified by a second researcher.

Results: Thirteen studies met the inclusion criteria and were cross-sectional surveys employing a variety of self-report questionnaires. The majority of studies found that a higher personal physical activity level was associated with higher physical activity-promoting practices, and that health professionals with positive attitudes towards physical activity were more likely to promote physical activity to their clients.

Conclusion: The findings of this review need to be confirmed by well-designed large studies which employ validated measures of physical activity and physical activity-promoting practices and involve multivariate analyses to identify the relative contribution of personal physical activity levels to physical activity-promoting practices.