Recommendations to Enhance Parental Involvement and Adolescent Participation in Physical Activity

Adolescents are influenced by external factors which may impact their level of physical activity. Parents require specific strategies to become involved and to increase physical activity participation in adolescence.

Thus, the current study aimed to design recommendations to increase physical activity participation and parental involvement.

The current study forms part of a broader mixed-method study in which the results of the phases and stages of the pre-studies informed the current study. Thus, the current study uses an agreement workshop to develop recommendations with stakeholder and expert input in two rounds. Participants were invited to participate in the current study n = 100, and n = 65 participated in round one. Round two consisted of n = 20 experts invited to an agreement workshop, with n = 11 attending and making an input on the final recommendations. Therefore, experts and parents in the field of parenting, physical activity, and physical education, were invited to participate in the study rounds. After each round, the responses from the panellists were collated, interpreted, and developed into a framework for recommendations using thematic analysis. Themes were generated and refined using an agreement format.

After results from the stages and phases were consolidated and refined, six themes and 51 sub-themes were identified in a framework for recommendations. The framework was further refined using expert input and the final recommendations were derived using an agreement or agreement. Thus, with input from experts input through the agreement workshop, the findings were discussed, refined, and drafted into recommendations. Agreement and agreement were achieved on six broad recommendations and fifty-one sub-themes. The final recommendations were presented in the current study to increase parental involvement and physical activity in adolescents.

Recommendations and physical activity resources were developed and are presented as a form of support to parents and adolescents. The recommendations are intended as a source of unbiased information for parents to become more involved and for adolescents to increase physical activity participation.