Assessing physical activity in people with mental illness: 23-country reliability and validity of the simple physical activity questionnaire (SIMPAQ)

BACKGROUND

Physical inactivity is a key contributor to the global burden of disease and disproportionately impacts the wellbeing of people experiencing mental illness. Increases in physical activity are associated with improvements in symptoms of mental illness and reduction in cardiometabolic risk. Reliable and valid clinical tools that assess physical activity would improve evaluation of intervention studies that aim to increase physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviour in people living with mental illness.

METHODS

The five-item Simple Physical Activity Questionnaire (SIMPAQ) was developed by a multidisciplinary, international working group as a clinical tool to assess physical activity and sedentary behaviour in people living with mental illness. Patients with a DSM or ICD mental illness diagnoses were recruited and completed the SIMPAQ on two occasions, one week apart. Participants wore an Actigraph accelerometer and completed brief cognitive and clinical assessments.

RESULTS

Evidence of SIMPAQ validity was assessed against accelerometer-derived measures of physical activity. Data were obtained from 1010 participants. The SIMPAQ had good test-retest reliability. Correlations for moderate-vigorous physical activity was comparable to studies conducted in general population samples. Evidence of validity for the sedentary behaviour item was poor. An alternative method to calculate sedentary behaviour had stronger evidence of validity. This alternative method is recommended for use in future studies employing the SIMPAQ.

CONCLUSIONS

The SIMPAQ is a brief measure of physical activity and sedentary behaviour that can be reliably and validly administered by health professionals.

Comorbidity between social phobia and premature ejaculation: study on 242 males affected by sexual disorders

Several studies have reported high comorbidity between psychiatric and sexual disorders, particularly between anxiety and mood disorders and sexual dysfunction. The goal of the present study is to examine the comorbidity between premature ejaculation and Axis I psychiatric disorders. Of 242 males referred to an outpatient clinic of sexology between November 2000 and July 2003, 52 were diagnosed with premature ejaculation (PE). These patients were also administered the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID; First, Spitzer, Gibbon, & Williams, 1995) for the evaluation of Axis I psychiatric disorders and a modified SCID based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) criteria for the evaluation of sexual disorders. We also determined the age of onset of the disorders. We found that 21.5% of the overall clinical population was affected by PE, and 64.4% of PE patients were affected by at least one Axis I psychiatric disorder. PE was highly associated (p=0.015) with social phobia (SP), with an odds ratio of 2.55. The debut of SP preceded the onset of PE. Social phobia may represent risk factor for the development of PE, and adrenergic hyperactivity may represent a pathophysiology common to both disorders.