Abstract
Objectives: To test the effectiveness, in the setting of primary health care, of verbal
advice on exercise from a family physician (FP) combined with supporting written information.
Design: A controlled trial with subjects allocated to a control group or one of two
intervention groups using a balanced design based on day of the week.
Setting: Ten general practices in Perth, Western Australia.
Subjects: All sedentary patients consulting an FP.
Intervention: Verbal advice on exercise from the FP and a pamphlet on exercise mailed
to the patient’s home address within 2 days of his/her visit to the doctor.
Main outcome measure: Level of physical activity at follow-up.
Results: 6,351 adult patients attending an FP practice completed a screening questionnaire,
and 763 sedentary adults were recruited to the project. The response to follow-up,
via a postal survey at 1, 6, and 12 months after the index consultation was 70%, 60%,
and 57%, respectively. At 1 month a subsample of the control and intervention subjects
were contacted for a telephone interview to verify self-reported levels of activity
(n = 136). Treating all nonresponders as sedentary, at 1 month significantly more subjects
in the combined intervention groups reported doing some physical activity (40%) compared
with the control group (31%). Similarly, at 6 months, 30% of the control group and
38% of the combined intervention groups were “now active.” There was very little change
at follow-up at 12 months (31% control and 36% intervention groups, respectively).
Conclusion: A simple intervention aimed at the promotion of physical activity to sedentary
patients in general practice can help reduce inactivity.
Keywords
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© 1998 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
