Reliability and validity of the International physical activity questionnaire in Lithuania

ENBackground: Purpose of the study was to examine: (1) the criterion validity and test-retest reliability of the IPAQ-LT short-form (SF) and long-form (LF) and (2) its potential over-reporting and energy expenditure over-estimation. Material and methods: 130 participants, aged 18-69 years, wore the Actigraph GT3X accelerometer (ACC) on all waking hours over 7 consecutive days. One day before and after they completed both versions of the back-translated IPAQ-LT. 92 participants were included for the reliability and 81 for the validity tests. Spearman’s rho correlation coefficients were calculated as the measurement of agreement. Results: Only the walking category significantly (p <.05) correlated with the ACC, SF (.22), LF (.20). Compared with ACC data IPAQ-LT averaged 997% (SF) and 1512% (LF) more weekly minutes of PA and 864% (SF) and 1477% (LF) more MET-min/week. The classification of participants as sufficiently active was 87.6% (SF), 90.1% (LF), and 8.7% (ACC). Conclusions: The validity for total PA scored relatively low compared with other studies. Substantial PA over-reporting and EE over-estimation were observed. As such, the evidence is very weak to support the use of IPAQ-LT as a relative or an absolute measure of PA and further work in this regard is amended. Keywords: physical activity, IPAQ, over-reporting, validity and reliability, surveillance, Lithuania.