Stages of change and physical activity in a group of university students. Cali, Colombia

Abstract

The stages of change can be defined as changes in the behavior of the conduct of the people, which follows a series of steps. The present study sought to determine the stages of change with regard to the practice of physical activity of a group of college students. Its approach was quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional design. The sample of 193 students of the physiotherapy program from a private university in the city of Cali, selected by simple random sampling, through the OpenEpi statistical software version 3.0.1. A questionnaire of stages of change of physical activity in its short form was used. Analysis was descriptive and correlation with some sociodemographic variables using the Chi-square test. 89.6% of the university students is in the first three stages of change, i.e. are sedentary and a 10.31% was categorized as physically active. The variable associated with the stages of change was the sex with a value p<0.05. The majority of the participants in the study population is young and is at risk of classified as inactive physical. There is potential in this group to promote healthy habits through the practice of physical activity.

Keywords

• Actividad física
• ejercicio físico
• promoción de la salud
• estudiantes