Introduction: This study was conducted on 215 working women from four private corporate companies in a suburb in Malaysia to determine the factors related to their physical activity levels.
Methods: Data were collected using a questionnaire which included socio-demographic characteristics, the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), perceived barriers and benefits to physical activity, self-efficacy to physical activity and an 8-item questionnaire on current behavioral stage of physical activity.
Results: The majority of the respondents were Malay (81.9%) with 10.2% being Chinese and 7.9% Indian. Most of the respondents were executives (64.2%), while the rest were non-executives (24.7%) and managers (11.2%). The mean weight, height, BMI and waist circumference were 59.4 +/- 13.1 kg, 1.6 +/- 0.6 m, 23.7 +/- 4.8 kg/m2 and 77.0 +/- 12.1cm respectively. In this sample, 24.7% and 7.9% were overweight and obese respectively, while 34% were at risk of abdominal obesity. A total of 28.8% of the respondents had low physical activity level, while 48.8% and 22.3% were in the moderate and high physical activity categories respectively. An association was found between monthly income (chi2 = 110.17; p < 0.05) and current behavioral stage of physical activity (chi2 = 27.527; p < 0.05) with physical activity, but no relationship was found between job category and physical activity category (chi2 = 8.940; p > 0.05). Physical activity category was also positively correlated with perceived barriers (r = 0.227, p < 0.05) and benefits to physical activity (r = 0.280, p < 0.05). However, physical activity was not associated with self-efficacy to physical activity.
Conclusion: In this sample of working women, socio-demographic and psychosocial factors (except self-efficacy to physical activity) were found to have an association with physical activity level of the respondents. Further studies should be conducted to confirm these findings in the general working women population.