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Qualitative research
Research
Longitudinal qualitative study describing family physicians’ experiences with attempting to integrate physical activity prescriptions in their practice: ‘It’s not easy to change habits’
  1. Mathieu Bélanger1,2,3,
  2. Emily Wolfe Phillips4,
  3. Connor O’Rielly4,
  4. Bertin Mallet1,
  5. Shane Aubé1,
  6. Marylène Doucet1,
  7. Jonathan Couturier1,
  8. Maxime Mallet1,
  9. Jessica Martin1,
  10. Christine Gaudet1,
  11. Nathalie Murphy1,
  12. Jennifer Brunet4
  1. 1 Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
  2. 2 Centre de Formation Médicale du Nouveau-Brunswick, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada
  3. 3 Vitalité Health Network, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada
  4. 4 Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
  1. Correspondence to Dr Mathieu Bélanger; mathieu.f.belanger{at}usherbrooke.ca

Abstract

Objective Physical activity (PA) prescriptions provided by family physicians can promote PA participation among patients, but few physicians regularly write PA prescriptions. The objective of this study was to describe family physicians’ experiences of trying to implement written PA prescriptions into their practice.

Design Longitudinal qualitative study where participants were interviewed four times during a 12-month period. After the first interview, they were provided with PA prescription pads. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Setting Family medicine clinics in New Brunswick, Canada.

Participants Family physicians (n=11) with no prior experience writing PA prescriptions, but who expressed interest in changing their practice to implement written PA prescriptions.

Results Initially, participants exhibited confidence in their ability to write PA prescriptions in the future and intended to write prescriptions. However, data from the follow-up interviews indicated that the rate of implementation was lower than anticipated by participants and prescriptions were not part of their regular practice. Two themes emerged as factors explaining the gap between their intentions and behaviours: (1) uncertainty about the effectiveness of written PA prescription, and (2) practical concerns (eg, changing well-established habits, time constraints, systemic institutional barriers).

Conclusion It may be effective to increase awareness among family physicians about the effectiveness of writing PA prescriptions and address barriers related to how their practice is organised in order to promote written PA prescription rates.

  • family physician
  • physical activity prescription
  • clinician-patient relation

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-017265

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors MB and JB conceived the study objectives. MB, JB, BM, SA, MD and JC designed the study protocol. BM, SA, MD, JC, MM, JM, CG and NM collected the data. All authors contributed to the analysis and interpretation of data. EWP, COR and JB wrote the first draft of the Results section. MB, BM, SA, MD, JC, MM, JM, CG and NM wrote the first draft of the Introduction and Methods sections. MB completed the first draft of the full manuscript. All authors critically reviewed the full manuscript and approved the final version to be submitted.

    • Funding This research project was conducted without external funding. Funding had no influence on any aspect of the research nor on the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent As approved by our research ethics committee, all participants signed the informed consent form prior to participation in this study.

    • Ethics approval Vitalité Health Network research ethics committee.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement The transcripts supporting the results of this article are available upon request to the corresponding author and following fulfilment of a data sharing agreement.