Promoting adolescents’ physical activity at school

Promoting adolescents’ physical activity at school

The overall aim of this thesis was to explore the development of a health-promoting intervention that uses empowerment and information and communication technology, to examine the impact of the intervention and to describe adolescents’ and parents’ experiences of the intervention. This thesis includes four studies, three of which used a qualitative approach (I, III and IV) and one of which used a mixed method approach (II). Three of the studies involved adolescents (I-III), and one study involved parents (IV).

Data were generated using focus groups and analyzed using latent content analysis (study I). Physical activity, self-efficacy, social support, and attitude data were collected before and after the intervention and analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics (study II). Adolescents were interviewed and the data were analyzed using latent content analysis (study III). The parents were interviewed and the data were analyzed using latent content analysis (study IV).
The findings formed three themes: A, Acknowledging empowerment and physical activity; B, Bonded forces overcame barriers; and C, Competence and
motivation enable change. The first theme concerns behavior regarding health promotion, specifically physical activity. That theme includes the act of creating the intervention using an empowerment approach and the physical activity behavior after the intervention. The second theme concerns barriers to being physically active and social support from parents and peers regarding physical activity promotion. The third theme concerns motivation and associated personal factors, such as knowledge and self-efficacy.

The main conclusion of this thesis is that it is possible to develop an empowerment-inspired health-promoting intervention with a positive impact.
Furthermore, interventions that aim to promote physical activity among adolescents should preferably include information and communication technology from the adolescents’ reality, involve actions that stimulate the participation of both parents and peers and be school-based.

Länk till avhandlingen Promoting adolescents’ physical activity at school av Anna-Karin Lindqvist hittar du på Luleå tekniska universitet, som pdf.