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Physical activity is good for older adults-but is programme implementation being overlooked? A systematic review of
Samantha M Gray1, Heather A McKay2,3, Lindsay Nettlefold1
1Active Aging Research Team, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Objective:
To examine older adult physical activity (PA) intervention studies that evaluated implementation and/or scale-up. Research question 1: What implementation and/or scale-up indicators (specific, observable and measurable characteristics that show the progress of implementation) were reported? Research question 2: What implementation and/or scale-up frameworks were reported? Research question 3: Did studies evaluate the relationship between implementation or scale-up of the intervention and individual level health/behaviour outcomes? If yes, how?
Design:
Systematic review.
Data Sources:
Publications from electronic databases and hand searches (2000 to December 2019).
Eligibility Criteria For Selecting Studies:
Any PA intervention studies with community-dwelling older adult participants (mean age ≥60 years). Required indicators: (a) Must report amount of PA as an outcome, with validated self-report or objective measures, and (b) Must have reported at least one implementation or scale-up framework and/or one implementation or scale-up indicator.
Results:
137 studies were included for research question 1, 11 for question 2 and 22 for question 3. 137 studies reported an implementation indicator: 14 unique indicators. None were specified as indicators for scale-up evaluation. 11 studies were guided by an implementation or scale-up framework. 22 studies described a relationship between an implementation indicator and an individual-level health outcome.
Conclusion:
There is need for implementation research that extends beyond analysis at the individual level, includes clearly defined indicators and provides a guiding framework to support PA initiatives in older adults. Such implementation studies should evaluate factors in the broader context (eg,political, environmental) that influence scale-up.
Prospero Registration:
CRD42018091839.
