Looking to see if there is a correlation between a provider’s level of exercise and his/her counseling on exercise, we may be able to find further barriers in the discussion of this important topic and provide suggestions on how to improve provider to patient education on exercise. This ultimately can improve the frequency of discussions about exercise to patients.

Design:

A survey created and dispersed using RedCap to evaluate if there is a correlation between provider physical activity level and how much/if they discuss physical activity with their patients. MetroHealth Orthopedic, PM&R, IM, Internal Medicine-Pediatrics, Pediatrics and Family Medicine providers were recruited using RedCap with a link to the survey via email. After 2 months of collecting data, the data was analyzed using RedCap and a correlation analysis in Excel was run.

Results: Of the 308 providers who received the survey, 110 providers responded. The majority who responded were IM (30.9% of responders), followed by IM-Pediatrics, Pediatrics, Family Medicine, PM&R and Orthopedics. Most responders were also physicians, followed by NPs and then PAs, and most were female at 58.2%.

When evaluating if there was a correlation between providers exercise level and discussion of physical activity with patients, we found a correlation coefficient of 0.33 between days/week exercised and discussion of physical activity. We found a correlation of 0.21 for number of days per week physicians participating in moderate-vigorous exercise and the discussion of physical activity. Providers cited a lack of time as the primary reason for not discussing physical activity with their patients, followed by a perceived lack of interest by the patient, lack of patient indication, lack of provider knowledge, comfort level discussing exercise, and lastly worry about a poor review.

Conclusions: There was a mild positive correlation between provider exercise habits and how often providers discuss physical activity with their patients.