Atividade física e fatores associados em pré-escolares de Patrocínio, MG

Abstract

The goals of this study were to: I) identify, through a systematic review of the literature, questionnaires that assessed sedentary behavior (SD) and physical activity level (PAL) in Brazilian preschoolers; and II) determine the prevalence of physical activity (PA) and associated factors in preschoolers in the city of Patrocínio-MG. The search for the systematic review consisted of publications from January 2015 to October 2021 in the LILACS, PubMed, SciELO, and Scopus databases. The inclusion criteria were original articles published in Portuguese or English as well as complete downloadable theses and dissertations whose samples included Brazilian preschoolers. Duplicate publications, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, papers comprising Brazilian samples living abroad, and studies that failed to specify the measurement tool were excluded. One thousand thirty studies were found, and 12 were included in the qualitative synthesis; only one instrument demonstrated acceptable validation and reliability for application to Brazilian preschoolers, reinforcing the adoption of a validated questionnaire that meets the specificities of the Brazilian preschool population. To achieve the second goal, an epidemiological, cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted with a sample of preschool children of both genders in Patrocínio-MG. Data was collected from a random sample of public and private schools. The Pre-PAQ, a validated and reliable instrument for preschoolers, was used to collect data. Poisson Regression was used to determine the association of physical activity (outcome variable) with sociodemographic, behavioral, and health variables. More than half of the preschoolers (64.0%) were classified as being insufficiently active. Preschoolers who go to parks and squares once/sometimes a month (PR = 0.77; 95%CI: 0.65-0.91), once/sometimes a week (PR = 0.83; 95%CI: 0.70-0.98), and daily (PR = 0.48; 95%CI: 0.23-0.96) compared to those who do it rarely had a lower prevalence ratio of being insufficiently active. Conversely, preschoolers who attend school full-time (PR = 1.24; 95%CI: 1.06-1.45) and have an insufficiently active caregiver (PR 1.27; 95%CI: 1.04- 1.55) who rarely/never (PR = 1.51; 95%CI: 1.19-1.90) or occasionally (PR = 1.40; 95%CI: 1.10-1.78) encourages his/her child to engage in physical activity when the weather is favorable has higher prevalence ratios of being insufficiently active compared to preschoolers who attend one school shift and have a sufficiently active caregiver who frequently encourages his/her child to engage in physical activity. In summary, a 64.0% prevalence of insufficiently active preschoolers was found; the associated factors were the caregiver’s level of physical activity, school shift, frequency and access to spaces such as parks and squares, and the lack of encouragement of physical activity practices during favorable weather conditions.