TY - JOUR
T1 - Exercise Referral Instructors’ Perspectives on Supporting and Motivating Participants to Uptake, Attend and Adhere to Exercise Prescription
T2 - A Qualitative Study
AU - Shore, Colin B.
AU - Galloway, Stuart D. R.
AU - Gorely, Trish
AU - Hunter, Angus M.
AU - Hubbard, Gill
N1 - Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
PY - 2021/12/25
Y1 - 2021/12/25
N2 - Exercise referral schemes are designed to support people with non-communicable diseases to increase their levels of exercise to improve health. However, uptake and attendance are low. This exploratory qualitative study aims to understand uptake and attendance from the perspectives of exercise referral instructors using semi-structured interviews. Six exercise referral instructors from one exercise referral scheme across four exercise referral sites were interviewed. Four themes emerged: (i) the role that instructors perceive they have and approaches instructors take to motivate participants to take-up, attend exercise referral and adhere to their exercise prescription; (ii) instructors’ use of different techniques, which could help elicit behaviour change; (iii) instructors’ perceptions of participants’ views of exercise referral schemes; and (iv) barriers towards providing an exercise referral scheme. Exercise referral instructors play an important, multifaceted role in the uptake, attendance and adherence to exercise referral. On-going education and peer support for instructors may be useful. Instructors’ perspectives help us to further understand how health and leisure services can design successful exercise referral schemes.
AB - Exercise referral schemes are designed to support people with non-communicable diseases to increase their levels of exercise to improve health. However, uptake and attendance are low. This exploratory qualitative study aims to understand uptake and attendance from the perspectives of exercise referral instructors using semi-structured interviews. Six exercise referral instructors from one exercise referral scheme across four exercise referral sites were interviewed. Four themes emerged: (i) the role that instructors perceive they have and approaches instructors take to motivate participants to take-up, attend exercise referral and adhere to their exercise prescription; (ii) instructors’ use of different techniques, which could help elicit behaviour change; (iii) instructors’ perceptions of participants’ views of exercise referral schemes; and (iv) barriers towards providing an exercise referral scheme. Exercise referral instructors play an important, multifaceted role in the uptake, attendance and adherence to exercise referral. On-going education and peer support for instructors may be useful. Instructors’ perspectives help us to further understand how health and leisure services can design successful exercise referral schemes.
KW - Behaviour change
KW - Community-based research
KW - Exercise prescription
KW - Motivation
KW - Physical activity
KW - Public health practice
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85121663746&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/ijerph19010203
DO - 10.3390/ijerph19010203
M3 - Article
C2 - 35010462
AN - SCOPUS:85121663746
SN - 1661-7827
VL - 19
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
IS - 1
M1 - 203
ER -
