General practitioner advice on physical activity: Analyses in a cohort of older primary health care patients (getABI)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although the benefits of physical activity for health and functioning are recognized to extend throughout life, the physical activity level of most older people is insufficient with respect to current guidelines. The primary health care setting may offer an opportunity to influence and to support older people to become physically active on a regular basis. Currently, there is a lack of data concerning general practitioner (GP) advice on physical activity in Germany. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the rate and characteristics of older patients receiving advice on physical activity from their GP.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This is a cross-sectional study using data collected at 7 years of follow-up of a prospective cohort study (German epidemiological trial on ankle brachial index, getABI). 6,880 unselected patients aged 65 years and above in the primary health care setting in Germany were followed up since October 2001. During the 7-year follow-up telephone interview, 1,937 patients were asked whether their GP had advised them to get regular physical activity within the preceding 12 months. The interview also included questions on socio-demographic and lifestyle variables, medical conditions, and physical activity. Logistic regression analysis (unadjusted and adjusted for all covariables) was used to examine factors associated with receiving advice. Analyses comprised only complete cases with regard to the analysed variables. Results are expressed as odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 1,627 analysed patients (median age 77; range 72-93 years; 52.5% women), 534 (32.8%) stated that they had been advised to get regular physical activity. In the adjusted model, those more likely to receive GP advice on physical activity were men (OR [95% CI] 1.34 [1.06-1.70]), patients suffering from pain (1.43 [1.13-1.81]), coronary heart disease and/or myocardial infarction (1.56 [1.21-2.01]), diabetes mellitus (1.79 [1.39-2.30]) or arthritis (1.37 [1.08-1.73]), and patients taking a high (> 5) number of medications (1.41 [1.11-1.80]).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The study revealed a relatively low rate of older primary health care patients receiving GP advice on physical activity. GPs appeared to focus their advice on patients with chronic medical conditions. However, there are likely to be many more patients who would benefit from advice.</p

Cultural identity and convergence on western attitudes and beliefs in the United Arab Emirates

Studies of acculturation have assumed that, under pressure to assimilate, individuals will accommodate by adopting behavioural and attitudinal attributes of the local, dominant culture. In contrast, this empirical study based in the United Arab Emirates used an original survey instrument, together with a range of convergent analytic techniques, to demonstrate pervasive westernization in the Arab and subcontinental-dominant communities. In addition, the study demonstrates a novel use of multiple discriminant analysis to explore differences between cultural and personal identities, a potentially useful tool for the cross-cultural management literature. In contrast to other studies, we examine how individuals perceive themselves as deviating from their home cultures in a context where there is minimal pressure to conformto the local culture and commercial globalization is given free reign. We show that non-westerners perceived themselves both as more deviant from their home societies than those fromwestern nations and as more similar to westerners than to their own societies. The fact that even those born in Gulf Arab nations tended to converge on western beliefs and behaviours suggested the cause of westernization may have been media and western business models. These observations lead us to challenge common theoretical models of acculturation by suggesting that individuals may acculturate by assuming learned transient aspects of cultural identity in order to maximize personal opportunity