Goal

This project has as its overall goal the establishment of a collaborative interdisciplinary primary care team to encourage physical activity (PA) by integrating a physical activity counselor to the primary health care team.   

Information on the PAC project is available at www.health.uottawa.ca/pac or by contacting:

Michelle Fortier, PhD.

Tel.: 613-562-5800 (4276)

mfortier@uottawa.ca

Primary Research Question

Will a higher proportion of patients receiving brief physical activity counseling from a health care provider (physicians or nurses) AND counseling from a physical activity counselor show greater improvement in task motivation and task self-efficacy to participate in physical activities over a 3 month period than those patients who receive only brief physical activity counseling from a health care provider?

Methodology

A randomized controlled trial with two arms:

1) existing provider brief counseling (2 minutes) and

2) brief counseling + physical activity counseling from a physical activity counselor (3 months) is planned.

This randomized controlled trial involves using an objective measure to track short and long term changes in physical activity, determining why the intervention is effective or ineffective by measuring key mediating variables and assessing fitness and metabolic outcomes.

Phases / Timeline

Phase 1:	Focus groups and interviews (January - August 2004: funded through internal sources)
Phase 2:	Obtain ethics approval and focus group with staff in host practice (October 2004 - April 2005)
Phase 3:	Development (and translation) of training and materials for providers and physical activity counselor(January - April 2005)
Phase 4:	Provider and PAC training (March - April 2005)
Phase 5:	2 week run-in (first 2 weeks of May)
Phase 6:	Randomized controlled trial May 24 2005 - March 2006): May - September: Recruitment (3.5 months) June - December: Intervention (3 months) November - February: Maintenance phase (3 months); physical activity counseling offered to controls
Phase 7:	Analysis and dissemination (February 2006 - May 2006)

 

Funding body and amount

This project is funded by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care of Ontario, Primary Health Care Transition Fund in the amount of $682 000.

Collaborators

• Geoff Williams, MD, PhD.
• Jim Jaffey, PhD.
• School of Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa
• Élisabeth Bruyère Research Institute (ÉBRI )
• Montfort Hospital
• Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP)
• City of Ottawa 

Principal Investigators 

Michelle Fortier, PhD. 

William Hogg, Hons.B.Sc., M.Sc., M.Cl.Sc., M.D., C.C.F.P., F.C.F.P 

Co-Investigators

Ron Sigal, MD. 

Tracey O’Sullivan, PhD.

Chris Blanchard, PhD.

Eric Doucet, PhD. 

Robert Reid, PhD.

Andrew Pipe, PhD. 

Dr. Larry W. Chambers, PhD.

Doug Angus, PhD. 

Pierre Boulay, PhD.