The Effect of Including Fitness Testing in Preventive Health Checks on Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Motivation to Change Physical Activity Behaviour

BACKGROUND

Changing unhealthy lifestyle improves health and reduces morbidity. Motivation is a key component in initiation and maintenance of lifestyle changes. Identifying and motivating individuals with unhealthy lifestyle to change behaviour may be achieved through preventive health checks as already implemented in some countries. However, knowledge about the impact of individual components included in preventive health checks is lacking. Consequently, the most effective composition of preventive health checks remains unknown.

In a Danish municipality, the Check your Health Prevention Program (CHPP) was recently initiated, offering preventive health checks to all 30 to 49 year-old citizens. This program provides the unique opportunity to evaluate single components of a preventive health check in a real-life setting. Only a few previous studies have included cardiorespiratory fitness (fitness) testing in a preventive health check. Fitness is associated with multiple health benefits such as improved cardio-metabolic profile and reduced risk of cancer, diabetes, and depression.

The investigators aim to investigate the effect of including fitness testing in preventive health checks on fitness level, motivation for changing physical activity behaviour, physical inactivity prevalence and self-rated health. The investigators hypothesize that fitness testing as part of preventive health checks compared to preventive health checks without fitness testing 1) increases fitness level assessed after one year and the percentage of participants increasing motivation to change physical activity behaviour assessed after two weeks, and 2) reduces physical inactivity prevalence and improves self-rated health scores during the one-year study period.

METHODS