Barriers and facilitators on the implementation of physical activity in Primary Health Care: A systematic review

Abstract

Barriers and facilitators influence the implementation of physical activity (PA) in Primary Health Care (PHC). This study aimed to analyze the scientific evidence on barriers and facilitators perceived by stakeholders on the implementation of PA in PHC.The search databases consisted of Web of Science, Medline, Scopus, and Lilacs. Two independent researchers reviewed the eligibility criteria and extracted and coded the information according to the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF). The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research was used to report the quality of the included studies. We analyzed 8.471 studies but included only 16. The studies identified 54 different reports on barriers and 48 on facilitators. Reports were often identified in the “environmental context and resources” domain, with 27 reports on barriers and 27 on facilitators. We found 25 reports of barriers and 16 of facilitators in the TDF domains that demonstrate professional profile characteristics. The low expectations in the professional profile for the implementation can influence the context and the organizational climate to identify more barriers than facilitators.

Keywords

• Barriers
• Facilitators
• Primary health care
• Professionals
• Managers
• Physical activity