Distance from home to exercise site did not influence the adherence of 796 participants

Abstract

Background: One of the difficulties in maintaining long-term adherence to exercise is the distance from home to the place of exercise. Objective: To determine, for a private supervised exercise program (SEP), the influence of the home-SEP distance on adherence. Methods: We identified 976 individuals and selected 796 who met the inclusion criteria. The home-SEP distance was obtained by the Google Maps. Adherence was determined by quartiles (months): 1-4, 5-12, 13-36 and more than 36. The clinical conditions were stratified as healthy, obese and/or hypertensive and/or dyslipidemic and/or diabetic patients without coronary disease; coronary artery disease patients and other health problems like cancer, respiratory disease and panic. The home-SEP distance was divided into (km): up to 1, 1 to 3, 3 to 10 and more than 10. For the statistical analysis, we used the Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA and the chi-square test. Results: Of respondents, 46% lived up to 3 km, 39% lived between 3 and 10 km and about 15% lived more than 10 kilometers from the place of the SEP. No differences were found between the medians of the months of participation in the SEP as a function of home-SEP distance (p = 0.11). Conclusion: For a given SEP in the city of Rio de Janeiro, open from Monday through Saturday with free choice of time, the home-SEP distance did not influence the adherence of participants. This was probably due to the quality of the service and/or lack of places closer to the participants’ home.