Version 1
: Received: 26 March 2023 / Approved: 27 March 2023 / Online: 27 March 2023 (05:15:05 CEST)
How to cite:
Ansah, E.W.; Adabla, M.; Norgbedzie, J.; Aloko, E.A.; Hagan Jr., J.E. Investigating Sedentariness and Health Status of Primary School Teachers in Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana. Preprints2023, 2023030447. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202303.0447.v1
Ansah, E.W.; Adabla, M.; Norgbedzie, J.; Aloko, E.A.; Hagan Jr., J.E. Investigating Sedentariness and Health Status of Primary School Teachers in Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana. Preprints 2023, 2023030447. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202303.0447.v1
Ansah, E.W.; Adabla, M.; Norgbedzie, J.; Aloko, E.A.; Hagan Jr., J.E. Investigating Sedentariness and Health Status of Primary School Teachers in Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana. Preprints2023, 2023030447. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202303.0447.v1
APA Style
Ansah, E.W., Adabla, M., Norgbedzie, J., Aloko, E.A., & Hagan Jr., J.E. (2023). Investigating Sedentariness and Health Status of Primary School Teachers in Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202303.0447.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Ansah, E.W., Eric A Aloko and John Elvis Hagan Jr.. 2023 "Investigating Sedentariness and Health Status of Primary School Teachers in Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202303.0447.v1
Abstract
Objective: Physical inactivity is linked to chronic illnesses and disabilities among workers, especially those in high demanding jobs like teachers. Despite the global prominence of sedentary behaviour research, studies drawing the relationships between physical inactivity and multimorbidity among working teacher populations in low-and middle-countries remain untapped. This study assessed the sedentariness and health status of primary school teachers in Cape Coast Metropolis in Ghana. Method: This cross-sectional survey employed 1109 primary school teachers from the Cape Coast Metropolis in the Central Region of Ghana, using convenient sampling method. Results: Generally, the teachers were highly sedentary and reported poor health status. Other results showed no difference in sedentariness across gender, t (1107) = -0.32, p > .05. However, female teachers suffer more pain and discomfort, [t (1103.51) = - 3.07, p < .05, anxiety and depression, [t (1099.56) = - 2.85, p < .000,)], and poor health status [t (1107) = 2.14, p < .05, than their male counterparts. Also, pain and discomfort, anxiety and depression, health status and years of work significantly predicted sedentariness among the teachers, F (4, 1104) = 5.966, p=.00, R = .145, R2 = .029, adjusted R2 = .018. Conclusion: The findings suggest that individualized or personalized interventions are urgently needed to promote regular physical activity to improve the health status and reduce associated complications on the health and well-being, especially among the female primary school teachers. Given the health risks of sedentary lifestyle, behavioral interventions at the person-level (i.e., individualized- routine weekly physical activity programmes) and built environmental restructuring (e.g., creation of walkways to encourage regular walking) could be done to physical activity behavior among teachers within the Cape Coast Metropolis, and perhaps beyond.
Keywords
Anxiety; depression; discomfort; pain; physical inactivity; sedentariness; self-rated health status
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Orthopedics and Sports Medicine
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
