Abstract:
Physical activity (PA) can happen during working and leisure hours. While a blue-collar worker clearly has higher PA than a white-collar worker during working hours, the level of PA of some professions including a nurse who has a varying proportional mixture between physical and non-physical tasks across different levels of a profession was unclear. To examine nurse PA level, this study applied both qualitative and quantitative methods. First, a synthesis of evidence on PA intervention strategies in a workplace was done using a systematic meta-review. Second, a four-round modified Delphi technique plus in-depth interviews were conducted to get a better understanding of PA level of nursing tasks. Part of the findings was used to assist in quantifying the magnitude of PA in a prospective observational study in 142 nurse clinical practitioners (NCP) and 147 nurse managers (NM), equipped with an activity tracker on their hip all day for five days to record step counts during their work and non-work hours. Panel data analysis with random effects was performed and a new measure called step counts per hour was proposed. Two hundred and twenty studies in eleven systematic reviews and/or meta-analysis were retrieved from three major academic literature databases. Fifty-seven interventions were reviewed and classified using the PRECEDE-PROCEED framework: 22 (46%) focused on predisposing factors, 17 (35%) focused on enabling factors, and the remaining interventions focused on reinforcing, environmental development, and policy regulatory. The qualitative study revealed 96 (80 patient- and 16 non-patient-related) activities in 18 groups of nursing tasks (7 low, 10 moderate, and 1 high intensity). Based on the 1,410 person-day data, NCP and NM had similar overall daily PA level. NCP had significantly higher work-related activity than that of NM, even after adjusted for age, work experience, and BMI. NM should be supported to have more physical activity.