Using a single question to assess physical activity in older adults: a reliability and validity study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Single-item physical activity questions provide a quick approximation of physical activity levels. While recall questionnaires provide a more detailed picture of an individual's level of physical activity, single-item questions may be more appropriate in certain situations. The aim of this study was to evaluate two single-item physical activity questions (one absolute question and one relative question) for test-retest reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity, in a sample of older adults. METHODS: Data was obtained from the Project to Prevent Falls in Veterans, a fall risk-factor screening and modification trial. One question measured absolute physical activity (seldom, moderately, vigorously active) and one measured relative physical activity (more, about as, less active than peers). Test-retest reliability was examined using weighted Kappa statistics (κ) in a sample of 43 subjects. Validity was assessed using correlation coefficients (r) in participants who received clinical assessments (n = 159). RESULTS: The absolute physical activity question was more reliable than the relative physical activity question (κ = 0.75 vs. κ = 0.56). Convergent validity, however, was stronger for the relative physical activity question (r = 0.28 to 0.57 vs. r = 0.10 to 0.33). Discriminant validity was similar for both questions. For the relative physical activity question, there was moderate agreement when this question was re-administered seven days later, fair to moderate/good associations when compared with indicators of physical function, and little to no associations when compared with measures hypothesized to be theoretically not related to physical activity. CONCLUSIONS: The relative physical activity question had the best combination of test-retest reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity. In studies requiring a measure of physical activity, where physical activity is not the primary focus and more detailed measures are not feasible, a single question may be an acceptable alternative.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.017 | 0.026 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".