Validity of the occupational sitting and physical activity questionnaire (OSPAQ) for home-based office workers during the COVID-19 global pandemic: A secondary analysis

A paper titled “Validity of the occupational sitting and physical activity questionnaire (OSPAQ) for home-based office workers during the COVID-19 global pandemic: A secondary analysis” has recently been published in Applied Ergonomics. The full paper can be found here. The summary of the paper and citation details are re-posted below. 

Abstract

High levels of occupational sitting is an emerging health concern. As working from home has become a common practice as a result of COVID-19, it is imperative to validate an appropriate self-report measure to assess sitting in this setting. This secondary analysis study aimed to validate the occupational sitting and physical activity questionnaire (OSPAQ) against an activPAL4™ in full-time home-based ‘office’ workers (n = 148; mean age = 44.90). Participants completed a modified version of the OSPAQ and wore an activPAL4™ for a full work week. The findings suggest that the modified OSPAQ has fair levels of validity in terms of correlation for sitting and standing (ρ = 0.35–0.43, all p < 0.05) and agreement (bias = 2–12%) at the group level; however, estimates were poor at an individual level, as suggested by wide limits of agreement (±22–30%). Overall, the OSPAQ showed to be an easily administered and valid questionnaire to measure group level sitting and standing in this sample of adults.

Citation

Dillon, K., Hiemstra, M., Mitchell, M., Bartmann, N., Rollo, S., Gardiner, P. A., & Prapavessis, H. (2021). Validity of the occupational sitting and physical activity questionnaire (OSPAQ) for home-based office workers during the COVID-19 global pandemic: A secondary analysis. Applied Ergonomics, 97, 103551. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2021.103551