A contribution to the Italian validation of the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Children (PAQ-C)

Background Knowledge of children' physical activity levels is fundamental in interdisciplinary health care and educational interventions. In recent literature it is underlined the need to adopt objective measure of physical activity, however the use of self-report instruments are still the most used in large population studies because of their cost-effectiveness. The Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ-C, Crocker et al., 1997) is a questionnaire designed to assess habitual moderate to vigorous physical activity levels of school aged children from grades four to eight. It is a 7-day recall instrument, consisted of 10 items and it lastly scores by means of 9 items between 1 (low physical activity) and 5 (high physical activity). In order to contribute to the validation of the PAQ-C in the Italian population, an Italian version of the PAQ-C was obtained by means of a back translation procedure. Materials and method One thousand one hundred and forty-six children of 4th and 5th grade completed the Italian version of the PAQ-C during a physical education lesson, with a class administration method, in April. As indicated in the scoring manual, pupils who indicated that they cannot perform the normal physical activity during the previous week were excluded from the analysis. The considered group consisted of 576 boys and 517 girls with a mean age of 9.3 years (SD = 0.6 years). General test score characteristics of the Italian version of the PAQ-C were investigated. Descriptive analysis of items were examined separately for boys and girls as well as for the total group. Results MANOVA reported a significant gender effect (Wilks Lambda = 0.957; p < .001). Univariate ANOVA shown significant differences by gender on all items scores, with boys scoring higher than girls (p < .01 and p < .05 on item 4), with exception for the first item in which boys and girls reported similar values. An independent sample t-test on the total PAQ-C score, reported values significantly higher for boys (t(1091) = 6.04, p < .01). Scale reliabilities for girls (α = .76), boys (α = .71) and total group (α = .74) were acceptable. Mean corrected item-total scale correlations were .45 when considering the whole group, .42 for boys and .47 for girls. Discussion The Italian version of the PAQ-C resulted homogeneous with the original version. Results of the descriptive analysis reported a low mean value and variance for the first item and a high mean value for the physical education item, as in the original version of Crocker and Colleagues (1997). The Italian version of the PAQ-C appears a useful, inexpensive instrument to assess habitual moderate to vigorous physical activity in children large population studies. However, further research is necessary to confirm the reliability of the questionnaire in test-retest administrations, over long-term periods and in comparison with objective data (e.g. accelerometers and pedometers).