Assessing the validity of a physical activity questionnaire developed for parents of preschool children in Mexico
Bacardi-Gascón, M.; Reveles-Rojas, C.; Woodward-Lopez, G.; Crawford, P.; Jiménez-Cruz, A.
Journal of Health Population and Nutrition 30(4): 439-446
2012
ISSN/ISBN: 1606-0997 PMID: 23304910 Document Number: 657715
To assess the validity of a questionnaire developed for parents of preschool children to know their physical activity (PA) status, we compared the questionnaire results with the measures of accelerometer for children's activities. Thirty-five preschoolers who wore the accelerometer for at least 10 hours daily on 3 weekdays and one weekend day were included in the analyses. Time spent in activities of varied intensity was calculated by applying 15-second ActiGraph count cutoffs (ACC). Parents' perceptions of their children's PA were associated with the percentage of vigorous and moderate physical activity recorded with ACC at r = 0.62 (p = 0.0001). An association was shown between the percentage of a child's time spent in vigorous physical activity, as reported by parents, with that measured by ACC at r = 0.53 (p = 0.001). Results of this study suggest that the designed questionnaire might be a useful tool for assessing children's activity while, additionally, it warrants further investigation on larger samples of children.