Agreement between self-reported and objectively assessed physical activity among out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survivors.

BACKGROUND: Low level of physical activity is a risk factor for new cardiac events in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) survivors. Physical activity can be assessed by self-reporting or objectively by accelerometery.

AIM: To investigate the agreement between self-reported and objectively assessed physical activity among OHCA survivors HYPOTHESIS: Self-reported levels of physical activity will show moderate agreement with objectively assessed levels of physical activity.

METHOD: Cross-sectional study including OHCA survivors in Sweden, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. Two questions about moderate and vigorous intensity physical activity during the last week were used as self-reports. Moderate and vigorous intensity physical activity were objectively assessed with accelerometers (ActiGraph GT3X-BT) worn upon the right hip for 7 consecutive days.

RESULTS: Forty-nine of 106 OHCA survivors answered the two questions for self-reporting and had 7 valid days of accelerometer assessment. More physically active days were registered by self-report compared to accelerometery for both moderate intensity (median 5 [3:7] vs. 3 [0:5] days; p<0.001) and vigorous intensity (1 [0:3] vs. 0 [0:0] days; p<0.001). Correlations between self-reported and accelerometer assessed physical activity were sufficient (moderate intensity: rs =.336, p=0.018; vigorous intensity: rs =.375, p=0.008), and agreements were fair and none to slight (moderate intensity: k=0.269, p=0.001; vigorous intensity: k=0.148, p=0.015). The categorization of self-reported vs. objectively assessed physical activity showed that 26% vs. 65% had a low level of physical activity.

CONCLUSION: OHCA survivors reported more physically active days compared to the results of the accelerometer assessment and correlated sufficiently and agreed fairly and none to slightly. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.