12 MONTH ADHERENCE OF ADULTS WHO JOINED A FITNESS PROGRAM WITH A SPOUSE VS WITHOUT A SPOUSE

Objective. The purpose was to determine adherence of apparently health y adults who joined an exercise program with a spouse (Married Pairs) vs, without a spouse (Married Singles), It was hypothesized that Marri ed Pairs would have significantly higher adherence than Married Single s; and that self motivation would be associated with adherence. Experi mental design. Twelve month adherence of Married Pairs and Married Sin gles were compared to self motivation in a retrospective design. Setti ng. Subjects in this study did not volunteer for a scientific investig ation, instead they were spontaneous participants in a university fitn ess program. Participants. Married Pairs were 16 couples and Married S ingles were 16 married men and 14 married women. Interventions. This s tudy observed the 12 month spontaneous participation in a fitness prog ram. The only intervention was the self motivation questionnaire.Measu res. Adherence was defined as monthly attendance, compliance to the ex ercise prescription, dropout, and reason(s) for dropout, Self motivati on was also measured. Results. For Married Pairs, monthly attendance w as significantly higher (54.2%+/-10.3 vs 40.3%+/-14.3) and dropout (6. 3% vs 43.0%) was significantly lower than for Married Singles. Complia nce to the exercise prescription was good for all of the groups except for the Married Single Men, Fifty percent of the dropouts left becaus e of family responsibilities/lack of spousal support; 25% dropped-out to continue exercising on their own, Self motivation did not differ be tween Married Pairs and Married Singles, Monthly attendance of spouses in the Married Pairs demonstrated a significant correlation. Conclusi ons. Married Pairs had significantly higher attendance and lower dropo ut than Married Singles which appeared to he primarily influenced by s pousal support rather than by self motivation.