Stage of readiness to exercise in ethnically diverse women: a US survey

Purpose: To assess stage of readiness to exercise and readiness to be physi cally active in a national survey of women aged 40 yr and over from various racial/ethnic groups (the U.S. Women's Determinants Study). Method: The pr evalence of each stage was determined and compared across race/ethnicity. I n addition, the level of misclassification between self-report of stage of readiness to exercise/be physically active and self-reported participation in specific exercise behavior was evaluated. Results: Data were collected f rom a total of 2912 U.S. women via telephone survey over a I-yr period (bla ck 26%, American Indians/Alaskan Natives 25%. Hispanics 23%, and whites 26% ). Over half the total sample was staged as currently undertaking regular e xercise (maintenance stage, 55%), 25% indicated they were in precontemplati on, and 15% were in contemplation stage. Few women were in preparation and action stages. There were statistically significant differences between the minority groups. Specifically. black women (OR 0.53, 95% 0.31-0.91) were l ess likely to be in the active stages (e.g.. preparation. action, maintenan ce) than Hispanics and Alaskan Native/American Native women, and this was t rue after controlling for important sociodemographic and health variables ( age, education. BMI, and smoking). The additional analysis of a modified st age question developed to assess readiness to be more physically active (15 0 min wk(-1)) may have provided inflated results (82% in maintenance), poss ibly due to the complexity of the questions. The level of misclassification between measures ranged from 5 to 20%. Conclusion: These results: have imp ortant implications for the use of stage of change measures with population s of older ethnically diverse women particularly and the popularity of modi fying stage questions to reflect "lifestyle" or moderate-intensity physical activity.