Active commuting in women with fibromyalgia and in healthy young people

Resumen

Sedentariness and physical inactivity is growing around the world population. Active commuting behaviours (i.e. traveling to local common destinations by active means such as walking or cycling) appear as a source to increase physical activity (PA) levels. This behaviour is easily incorporable to daily routines and present more benefits apart from the PA increase (e.g. social or environmental benefits). Therefore, the aims of this Doctoral Thesis are to develop instruments to assess this behaviour and to understand which characteristics are more favourable to commute actively in women with fibromyalgia and young people. Project I is focused on fibromyalgia women, analysing the reliability and validity of an instrument to assess the perceived environment and the commuting behaviours (Study I); and understanding the characteristics of women with fibromyalgia regarding socioeconomic factors (Study II), general PA (Study III) and symptomatology (Study IV). Project II is focused on young people, proposing a questionnaire throughout a systematic review (Study V) and analysing the validity and psychometric properties of the questionnaire (Studies VI and VII). Moreover, the associations of weather conditions, accompaniment and safety perception with active commuting to school are analysed (Studies VIII and IX). The main findings of this Doctoral Thesis were: I) The environmental and the mode of commuting questionnaires are a reliable and valid tools; II) Fibromyalgia and healthy women have similar patterns of active commuting when they are young. Family demands are inversely associated with commuting patterns in women with fibromyalgia; III) Women with fibromyalgia who commute by active means spend less sedentary time and are involved in greater physical activity behaviours than those who commute passively; IV) Young women with fibromyalgia who commute actively presents better symptomatology for fibromyalgia impact, Health Related Quality of Life and fatigue, than older and/or passive commuter counterpart; V) The reporting of self-report measures for commuting to and from school was heterogeneous and only a few studies presented a reliable and valid question; VI) The Mode and Frequency of Commuting to and from School Questionnaire shows a convergent validity as tool to assess this behaviour in Spanish children and adolescents; VII) To assess the mode of commuting is recommended to include both trip directions (i.e., to and from school) and only the usual mode; VIII) Specific weather conditions had positive association with the daily active commuting to school. Additionally, some deviations from the usual mode were associated with weather conditions; IX) Among children who commute actively to school, those who were older reported a higher percentage of independent commuting to school than younger counterparts and independent commuting to school was associated with safety perception. The results of this Doctoral Thesis provide tools to assess and to enhance our understanding about active commuting behaviours in fibromyalgia women (regarding socioeconomic factors, physical activity and symptomatology) and in young people (regarding to the influence of weather, accompaniment and safety perception). These results will lead us to future research in which intervention strategies to encourage active commuting could be more accurate.