Validity of the occupational sitting and physical activity questionnaire (OSPAQ) for home-based office workers during the COVID-19 global pandemic: A secondary analysis

Kirsten Dillon; Madison Hiemstra; Marc Mitchell; Nina Bartmann; Scott Rollo; Paul A Gardiner; Harry Prapavessis

doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2021.103551

Validity of the occupational sitting and physical activity questionnaire (OSPAQ) for home-based office workers during the COVID-19 global pandemic: A secondary analysis

Appl Ergon. 2021 Nov:97:103551. doi: 10.1016/j.apergo.2021.103551. Epub 2021 Aug 12.

Authors

Kirsten Dillon¹, Madison Hiemstra², Marc Mitchell², Nina Bartmann³, Scott Rollo⁴, Paul A Gardiner⁵, Harry Prapavessis²

Affiliations

¹ School of Kinesiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada. Electronic address: kdillon9@uwo.ca.
² School of Kinesiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
³ Center for Advanced Hindsight, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
⁴ Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8L1, Canada; School of Epidemiology and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8M5, Canada.
⁵ School of Kinesiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; School of Health & Wellbeing, Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences, University of Southern Queensland, Queensland, Australia.

Abstract

High levels of occupational sitting is an emerging health concern. As working from home has become a common practice as a result of COVID-19, it is imperative to validate an appropriate self-report measure to assess sitting in this setting. This secondary analysis study aimed to validate the occupational sitting and physical activity questionnaire (OSPAQ) against an activPAL4™ in full-time home-based 'office' workers (n = 148; mean age = 44.90). Participants completed a modified version of the OSPAQ and wore an activPAL4™ for a full work week. The findings suggest that the modified OSPAQ has fair levels of validity in terms of correlation for sitting and standing (ρ = 0.35-0.43, all p < 0.05) and agreement (bias = 2-12%) at the group level; however, estimates were poor at an individual level, as suggested by wide limits of agreement (±22-30%). Overall, the OSPAQ showed to be an easily administered and valid questionnaire to measure group level sitting and standing in this sample of adults.

Keywords: Measurement-of-agreement; OSPAQ; activPAL™.

MeSH terms

Adult
COVID-19*
Exercise
Humans
Middle Aged
Occupational Health*
Pandemics
Reproducibility of Results
SARS-CoV-2
Sedentary Behavior
Sitting Position
Surveys and Questionnaires
Workplace