Do participants in a physical activity program from a Care Sport Connector become healthier? An explorative study from the Netherlands

E Smit; K E F Leenaars; M A E Wagemakers; E J Bakker; J van der Velden; G R M Molleman

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0287913

Do participants in a physical activity program from a Care Sport Connector become healthier? An explorative study from the Netherlands

PLoS One. 2023 Dec 14;18(12):e0287913. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0287913. eCollection 2023.

Authors

E Smit¹, K E F Leenaars², M A E Wagemakers², E J Bakker², J van der Velden¹, G R M Molleman¹

Affiliations

¹ Academic Collaborative Centre AMPHI, Primary and Community Care, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
² Department of Social Sciences, Health and Society Group, Wageningen University & Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands.

Abstract

Introduction: Care Sport Connectors (CSCs) have been appointed to create a connection between the primary care and physical activity (PA) sectors to stimulate residents who are inactive to become more physically active to gain health benefits. The objective of this explorative study was to find out whether CSCs achieve these goals by testing the hypothesis that more residents become physically active, and score higher for health-related fitness and health-related quality of life.

Method: We conducted a longitudinal study design whereby participants (n = 402) were measured at three time points: at the start of their PA program (T0); after 6 months (T1); and after 1 year (T2). Participants conducted a fitness test to measure their health-related physical fitness and filled in questionnaires to assess PA level (PA-, Fit-, Combi-, and sport norm), health-related quality of life, motivation for PA, and personal information. We used a multi-level analysis to test whether outcomes of participants differ over time. Participants who dropped out and maintainers were compared with a chi-square test and a one-way ANOVA.

Results: This study showed that one-third of the participants dropped out (n = 139). Participants who dropped out were, compared with maintainers, less physically active (P = 0.004) and were more often reached in bigger municipalities, by an integral approach. More participants meet the PA norm (P = 0.007) and sport norm (P<0.001) at T2 then at T0. Scores in health-related physical fitness and quality of life were significant but not a meaningful gain in health-related fitness.

Conclusion: More residents become physically active and participate in sport because they took part in a PA programs or activity organized by a CSC. Lifestyle interventions should be offered with a higher frequency, intensity, and focus on behavior change. It is necessary to invest in combined lifestyle interventions offered by a collaboration of primary care, welfare, and PA professionals.

Copyright: © 2023 Smit et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

MeSH terms

Exercise
Humans
Longitudinal Studies
Netherlands
Quality of Life*
Sports*

Grants and funding

The study is funded by ZonMw (www.zonmw.nl), the Dutch Organization for health research and healthcare innovation (project number 525001002, assigned to Dr, Ir. Annemarie Wagemakers) and registered in the Dutch Trialregister NTR4986 on 14 December 2014. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.