Is temperature associated with daily steps/day during pulmonary rehabilitation?

Abstract

Background: A recent systematic review highlighted the need to examine steps / day correlates during pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) that extend beyond the intrapersonal (e.g., age, disease severity) level.  The purpose of the current study was determine whether daily temperature was significantly associated with daily steps at the beginning and end of PR. Methods: 194 patients (mean age = 66.15; 54% male) wore a pedometer for 7 days and  recorded their daily steps in a log book  at the beginning, end, 3, and 9 months after completing PR.  For purposes of the current analysis, we only examined the PR assessments.  Next, patients’ addresses were linked to environment Canada’s weather data for each day they wore the pedometer to obtain the average daily temperature for the beginning and end of PR assessments. Results: Separate linear growth models were conducted in MPlus 7.0 (i.e., 1 for each assessment period) using daily temperature as time varying covariate to examine its association with steps / day controlling for age and gender.  Results showed daily temperature was significantly associated with daily steps at the beginning of PR (beta’s ranged from .10 to .20, p < .01), but not the end of PR. Conclusions: It appears that when patients are in the early stages of their PR, daily temperature may be associated with the number of steps they take on a daily basis.  However, as they progress through their PR, temperature becomes less important.

Acknowledgments: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada