Reliability and validity of the international physical activity questionnaire for adults in Syria

The International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) is a validated method for physical activity (PA) assessment used in many countries. This study compared two methods IPAQ-SF-SY and ActiGraph WGT3X-BT (AG) accelerometer in measuring PA and sedentary behavior (SB) in free-living conditions. A total of 52 working participants simultaneously wore the AG accelerometer for 7 days. Intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC), and Bland-Altman plots were used to evaluate reliability and validity of short-form Syrian version of questionnaire (IPAQ-SF-SY). In general, poor to moderate correlation was observed between answers of the IPAQ-SF-SY-1 and those of the IPAQ-SF-SY 2, with Spearman's correlation coefficients ranging from 0.20 to 0.88 (p < 0.05). Among the tested group, the ICC ranged from 0.27 to 0.90 in women and from 0.37 to 0.94 in men. Regarding validity, we found a low positive correlation between PA measured by AG accelerometer and that obtained by the IPAQ-SF-SY. Correlations were highest for MVPA (r = 0.25), and lowest for vigorous activity (r = 0.01). The limits of agreement for estimated MVPA calculated by IPAQ-SF-SY versus the AG accelerometer, with upper and lower 95% LOA of -119.2 to 298.2 min/day. The IPAQ-SF-SY appears to overestimate the levels of physical activity, but underestimated sitting time, suggesting that the tool has problems in measuring the levels of PA in Syrian adults.

Automated summary

The study showed poor to moderate correlation between IPAQ-SF-SY and ActiGraph accelerometer in assessing physical activity levels and sedentary behavior, with a tendency for overestimating physical activity levels and underestimating sitting time.