Introduction
Methods
Data sources
-
European Health Interview Survey (EHIS): to assess aerobic physical activity, we used the aggregated data set of the EHIS (Wave 2; 2013), where data of subjects aged 15 years and older on time spent doing health enhancing aerobic physical activity were collected from 28 European countries [19]. The time spent in aerobic physical activity was assessed with the validated European Health Interview Survey Physical Activity Questionnaire (EHIS-PAQ) [20]. The percentages of persons reaching “0 min”, “1–149 min”, “≥150 min” and “≥300 min” of moderate aerobic physical activity were reported. In this data the amount of strength training was not assessed.
-
Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE): for the assessment of the frailty status, the SHARE study (Wave 5; 2013) data were used [21]. In this study, data from persons aged ≥65 years and living in households were used. From all collected data, the items “exhaustion”, “weight loss”, “weakness”, “slowness” and “low activity” were used. Based on the SHARE frailty index [22], the discreet factor score was calculated and individuals were categorized as: 1) robust, and 2) prefrail or frail. Persons who did not answer or had missing values in any of the necessary items were excluded from the analysis.
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Austrian Health Interview Survey (ATHIS): as strength training was not assessed in the EHIS, and the study aimed to investigate if people fulfilling the aerobic physical activity were also likely to fulfil the recommendation for strength training, a subsample analysis was carried out, including the individual-based data from the Austrian part of the EHIS, the ATHIS 2014, were used [23]. The dataset comprised 15,770 subjects aged 15 years or older. The proportion of individuals fulfilling the minimal aerobic physical activity recommendation and the proportion of people conducting strength training at least twice a week were used. Aerobic physical activity was also assessed with the validated European Health Interview Survey Physical Activity Questionnaire (EHIS-PAQ) [20], whereas strength training was assessed with the question “On how many days a week do you conduct exercises aiming to strengthen your muscles?”.
Statistical analysis
Results
0 min/week (%) | 1–149 min/week (%) | ≥150 min/week (%) | ≥300 min/week (%) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Austria | 25.1 | 24.6 | 50.4 | 29.4 |
Czech Republic | 47.4 | 24.2 | 28.4 | 14.1 |
Denmark | 18.7 |
26.7
|
54.6
|
31.0
|
Estonia | 52.3 | 24.5 | 23.2 | 12.1 |
France | 49.0 | 26.0 | 25.0 | 11.7 |
Germany | 28.8 | 22.9 | 48.3 | 26.4 |
Italy |
65.0
| 16.8 | 18.2 | 8.9 |
Luxembourg | 36.5 | 21.9 | 41.6 | 21.9 |
Slovenia | 39.1 | 23.0 | 37.9 | 22.4 |
Spain | 51.0 | 15.0 | 34.0 | 21.1 |
Sweden | 24.6 | 21.3 | 54.1 | 30.7 |
Country | SHARE frailty index categories | ||
---|---|---|---|
Robust n (%) | Prefrail n (%) | Frail n (%) | |
Austria | 1590 (74.9) | 323 (15.2) | 210 (9.9) |
Czech Republic | 1979 (69.5) | 568 (20.0) | 299 (10.5) |
Denmark | 1459 (77.8) | 260 (13.9) | 157 (8.4) |
Estonia | 1800 (63.0) | 679 (23.8) | 379 (13.3) |
France | 1495 (66.6) | 466 (20.7) | 285 (12.7) |
Germany | 1854 (75.5) | 402 (16.4) | 201 (8.2) |
Italy | 1349 (61.5) | 469 (21.4) | 377 (17.2) |
Luxembourg | 448 (71.1) | 112 (17.8) | 70 (11.1) |
Slovenia | 876 (63.7) | 297 (21.6) | 202 (14.7) |
Spain | 1892 (59.4) |
764 (24.0)
|
528 (16.6)
|
Sweden |
2272 (81.3)
| 379 (13.6) | 142 (5.1) |