Effect of Coping and Threat Intervention on Physical Activity Intention among Government Employees of Baglung Municipality

Abstract

Physical inactivity is one of the major risk factors for non-communicable diseases. Physical activity related to work was categorized into vigorous, moderate and low levels. Dissatisfaction with body image proportionally increases with increasing BMI and engagement in some form of physical activity. The main objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of coping and threat intervention to increase the physical activity intention among employees of governmental offices in Baglung Municipality. This study was done among 15-69 age group which are at risk of developing obesity and its related diseases. Since obesity and physical activity are associated it is essential to explore obesity related information session for change physical activity intention, which provides the rationale for the current study. One group pre-test, post-test design was used in this study. Physical activity intention was measured applying protection motivation theory based on self-administered questionnaire, and anthropometric assessment was used to measure the body mass index. Formative research was done to develop educational intervention. Forty eight samples from different governmental organization of Baglung Municipality selected from simple random sampling without replacement technique. Frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation for univariate, chi-square and paired t-test for bivariate analysis was done. Most of the participants were male (81.3%) with mean age of (40.19 ± 10.61) years and plurality of the participants were in 45-69 age groups (41.7%). There was significant increase in self efficacy towards physical activity (p<0.049) and severity towards obesity (p<0.001) after the intervention. Both intention towards physical activity (p<0.001) and health literacy (p<0.001) were significantly increased after intervention. Interactive lecture was effective to bring about changes in self efficacy, severity, intention and health literacy. Interactive lecture method based on coping and threat strategies of protection motivation theory is recommended to increase physical activity intention and health literacy among governmental employees.

Key words : Physical exercise, Protection motivation theory, Body image, Health literacy, body mass index.