Convergent Validation of a Self-Reported Commuting to and from School Diary in Spanish Adolescents

Patricia Gálvez-Fernández; Manuel Herrador-Colmenero; Pablo Campos-Garzón; Daniel Molina-Soberanes; Romina Gisele Saucedo-Araujo; María Jesús Aranda-Balboa; Amador Jesús Lara-Sánchez; Víctor Segura-Jiménez; Pontus Henriksson; Palma Chillón

doi:10.3390/ijerph20010018

Convergent Validation of a Self-Reported Commuting to and from School Diary in Spanish Adolescents

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Dec 20;20(1):18. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20010018.

Affiliations

¹ "PROmoting FITness and Health through Physical Activity" Research Group, Sport and Health University Research Institute (iMUDS), Department of Physical Education and Sports, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain.
² La Inmaculada Teacher Training Centre, University of Granada, 18013 Granada, Spain.
³ Department of Didactics of Musical, Plastic and Corporal Expression, University of Jaen, 23071 Jaen, Spain.
⁴ UGC Neurotraumatología y Rehabilitación, Hospital Universitario Virgen de las Nieves of Granada, 18014 Granada, Spain.
⁵ Instituto de Investigación Biosanitaria (ibs.GRANADA), 18012 Granada, Spain.
⁶ GALENO Research Group, Department of Physical Education, Faculty of Education Sciences, University of Cádiz, 11519 Cádiz, Spain.
⁷ Research Institute and Biomedical Innovation of Cadiz (INiBICA), 11009 Cádiz, Spain.
⁸ Department of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences, Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the convergent validity of self-reported diary times for commuting to and from school with device-measured positional data (Global Positioning System; GPS) in Spanish adolescents.

Methods: Cross-sectional data were obtained from four Spanish public secondary schools in 2021, comprising 47 adolescents and 141 home-school and school-home trips. Participants self-reported the time they left and arrived at home and school through a commuting diary. They wore a GPS device recording the objective time during three trips (i.e., one home-school trip and two school-home trips). Agreement between commuting diary and GPS data regarding home-school trips and school-home trips was evaluated using Bland-Altman plots.

Results: Total commuting time differed by 1 min (95% limits of agreement were 16.1 min and -18.1 min) between subjective and objective measures (adolescents reported 0.8 more minutes in home-school trips and 1 more minute in school-home trips compared to objective data). Passive commuters reported 0.7 more minutes and active commuters reported 1.2 more minutes in the total commuting time compared to objective data.

Conclusions: Self-reported commuting diaries may be a useful tool to obtain commuting times of adolescents in epidemiological research or when tools to measure objective times are not feasible.

Keywords: active transport; commuting time; health behaviour; students.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Bicycling*
Cross-Sectional Studies
Humans
Schools
Self Report
Transportation
Walking*

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness and the European Regional Development Fund (DEP2016-75598-R, MINECO/FEDER, UE), as well as the Spanish Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (FPU17/03934, FPU18/04251). Additionally, this study was partially funded by the University of Granada, Plan Propio de Investigación 2016, Excellence actions: Units of Excellence, Unit of Excellence on Exercise and Health (UCEES), and by the Junta de Andalucía, Consejería de Conocimiento, Investigación y Universidades, European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), ref. SOMM17/6107/UGR. V.S.-J. was funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III through the fellowship CP20/00178, co-funded by the European Social Fund. This study is part of a Ph.D. thesis conducted in the Official Doctoral Program in Biomedicine of the University of Granada, Spain.