Validity of the international physical activity questionnaire short form for assessing physical activity in Japanese adults with type 1 diabetes

To examine the validity of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire short form (IPAQ-SF) against an objective method for assessing physical activity (PA) in Japanese adults with type 1 diabetes (T1D).

This cross-sectional study included 126 adults with T1D (aged 20–74 years). The participants wore a triaxial accelerometer for 7 consecutive days and completed the IPAQ-SF (a recall survey for the last 7 days) on the day following the 7-day accelerometer period. This ensured alignment between the periods assessed by both the methods.

A total of 112 participants were analyzed. The IPAQ-SF group had lower daily time in sedentary behavior (SB), total moderate-intensity PA (MPA) (including walking), vigorous-intensity PA (VPA), total PA (including walking), and daily metabolic equivalent (MET)-min in total PA than those in the accelerometer group. Significant correlations were observed between the methods for all variables: daily time in SB, total MPA, VPA, total PA, and daily MET-min in total PA (ρ = 0.203–0.527). In addition, walking time reported in the IPAQ-SF correlated with the step counts recorded by the accelerometer (ρ = 0.444). However, among these parameters, only daily time in VPA was able to provide acceptable levels of validity (≥ 0.50) and predict values recorded by the accelerometer.

These results indicate that the IPAQ-SF scores have a weak correlation with each type of accelerometer-measured PA, while the IPAQ-SF may underestimate each type of PA compared to an accelerometer in Japanese adults with T1D.