DIVISION OF SPORT AND EXERCISE PSYCHOLOGYANNUAL CONFERENCE 202129 - 30 NOVEMBER 2021, CROWNE PLAZA LIVERPOOL
Professor Afroditi Stathi
Professor Stathi is a Professor of Physical Activity and Community Health at the University of Birmingham. Her research interests cover the promotion of active ageing and the development of complex, health behaviour change interventions targeting lifelong health and well-being. She has attracted in excess of £5million in external funding from agencies such as the National Institute for Health Research (Public Health Research Programme), (Research for Patient Benefit programme); MRC (Lifelong Health and Well-being Initiative), (National Prevention Initiative), EPSRC, and European Commission. In 2019, Professor Stathi served on the Older Adults Expert Working Group for the update of the UK Chief Medical Officers’ Physical Activity Guidelines. Currently, she leads an NIHR-funded, 42-month, randomised controlled trial investigating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a peer-volunteering intervention targeting older people with mobility limitations.
Exercise psychology at the heart of complex,
health behaviour change interventions: Reflections on the “black box” of community-based,
active ageing programmes
Programme theory is a core element of complex interventions. It contains information about how the intervention is expected to work; it describes the key components of the intervention and how they interact; and it identifies the mechanisms of behaviour change and maintenance and how they will interact under the specific characteristics of the context in which the intervention is delivered.
This talk will highlight the importance of psychological theories and why they need to be at the heart of complex physical activity interventions. It will draw information and examples from the REtirement in ACTion (REACT) study, a pragmatic randomized controlled trial (RCT), with parallel process and health economic evaluations, which tested the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a complex active ageing intervention.
REACT aimed to establish whether a community-based active ageing intervention could prevent decline in physical functioning in older adults already at increased risk of mobility limitation. It recruited 777 physically frail or pre-frail older adults (65 years and older; Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) score 4-9) with a mean age of 77.6 years (SD 6.8; 66% female; mean SPPB score 7.37, SD 1.56). The primary outcome was change in lower limb physical function (SPPB score) at 24 months. Participants were randomly assigned to receive brief advice (three healthy ageing education sessions) (control arm; n=367); or a 12-month, group-based, multimodal exercise and behavioural maintenance programme delivered in fitness and community centres (intervention arm; n=410).
The talk will discuss the results of the study and link them with the programme theory and the theories of health behaviour change informing the design of the intervention. It will conclude with summarizing key strategies on how to incorporate exercise psychology theories in the development of active ageing intervention and the associated outcome and process evaluations.