Abstract / Summary
Policy rationale – The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) requested an assessment of the suitability of the General Practice Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPPAQ) for assessing physical activity (PA) in primary care, particularly in older adults. This work was commissioned to inform future policy decisions on assessment of PA in primary care, including whether the GPPAQ is an appropriate tool for assessment, may require modification to make it suitable, or should be replaced with a more suitable alternative. What we did - We consulted four PA expert academics and three general practitioners (GPs) through semi-structured interviews to identify alternative tools to the GPPAQ, develop criteria by which to judge the effectiveness of different tools, and identify key sources of evidence. A rapid evidence review, informed by this expert input, was then conducted to evaluate the brief PA assessment tools identified by the experts as being suitable for use in primary care in the UK. Searches were conducted in MEDLINE and Google Scholar to identify relevant systematic reviews and primary studies. Information on tool characteristics and evaluation criteria were extracted and compared. Findings were synthesised and integrated to summarise the relative strengths and weaknesses of each tool. This work forms part of a larger project, delivered in collaboration with the Healthy Ageing Policy Research Unit (HAPRU), to generate integrated evidence and actionable recommendations that will strengthen PA assessment in primary care.