Dr.Biol., Professor S.I. Loginov¹
Associate professor, PhD M.N. Malkov^1
1Surgut State University, Surgut

Keywords: physical activity, motor activity, hearing impairment, IPAQ form, 20-30 year-old adults.

Background. It is a matter of common knowledge today, that everyday physical activity (PA) is on decline [2] all over the country including the urban Siberian North in general and the Yugra area in particular [3]. The PA sagging trend irrespective of the age and gender is also known to be a risk factor for many non-infectious diseases dominated by cardiovascular and respiratory system diseases, diabetes and cancer [1, 5]. The World Health Organisation (WHO) offers a set of ways and methods to involve people of different nations to habitual PA. This challenging goal, however, needs to factor in the local and regional PA traditions, structure and levels for success of the correction initiatives, particularly those focused on people with health impairments.

Objective of the study was to profile, using IPAQ, the seasonal everyday gender-specific physical activity (PA) of the young people diagnosed with different hearing impairments.

Methods and structure of the study. Subject to the survey were 40 people of 25.9±2.97 years of age diagnosed with different degrees of the auditory function deficits, the sample being net of professional athletes. One study group was composed of hearing-impaired men (HIM, n=11) and women (HIW, n=9), and the other group of deaf men (DM, n=11) and women (DW, n=9) with the relevant diagnoses. The subjects were requested to fill-in the full Russian version of IPAQ [6] in autumn 2015 and spring 2016 to report the PA for the last seven days classified into the work-related PA, transportation, home PA and leisure-time PA, plus walking PA and the sitting time. The IPAQ data were processed using the authors’ PA calculation and analysing software [4]; and statistical data processing was made using Statistica-10 (StatSoft Inc., USA) software; with the mean arithmetic value, standard deviation, median and 0.95% confidence interval (CI) being calculated. Differences rated with р≤0.05 were considered statistically significant as per the Student and Wilcoxon test criteria.

Study results and discussion. 35% deaf and 45% hearing-impaired people in the study sample reported having full-time jobs. Furthermore, every deaf subject reported some hobby, including 55% hobbies associated with PA. Also 45% of the hearing-impaired subjects reported having inactive hobbies, 40% active hobbies, and 15% reported no hobbies. Medians and confidence intervals (CI) referring to the PA of the deaf and hearing-impaired subjects showed insignificant differences. The autumn and spring medians of the hearing-impaired subjects (HIS) were estimated at 2862 (2708; 4695) and 2712 (2036; 4747) МЕТ/min/ week, respectively; and the autumn and spring medians of the deaf subjects (DS) were estimated at 2641 (2564; 4717) and 2449 (2082; 3268) МЕТ/min/ week, respectively: see Table 1.

Table 1. Physical activity and sitting time reported by the hearing-impaired (HIS) and deaf adult subjects (DS), Me (0.95% CI)

Note: * р< 0.05 for the autumn/ spring DS data

The work-related and home PA and sitting time showed virtually no variations, whist the leisure-time PA of the DS was found to fall in spring: see Table 1. It should be noted that the same classes of the PA and sitting times reported by the deaf subjects were found to sag in the spring time, in contrast to the transportation PA that was found to double in the spring time. The work-related PA reported by the HIS increased in the spring time versus the transportation and home PA and sitting time that stayed virtually the same. The leisure-time PA showed some insignificant sagging trend (see Table 2). The work-related PA reported by the DS showed an insignificant sagging trend in the spring time. The transportation-related PA significantly increased, whilst the home and leisure-time PA decreased, versus the sitting time reported to fall: see Table 2. The PA reported by the hearing-impaired women (HIW) showed a sagging trend in the spring time in every class, including the sitting time: see Table 3.

Table 2. Physical activity and sitting time reported by the hearing-impaired men (HIM) and deaf men (DM), Me (0.95% CI)

Note: * р< 0.05 for the autumn/ spring DM data

The deaf women’s reports showed much the same picture, with the only exclusion for the transportation-related PA: the HIW reported it to fall, and the DW reported it to grow by more than 2 times; and the sitting time in the spring time showed a significant sagging trend: see Table 3.

Table 3. Physical activity and sitting time reported by the hearing-impaired women (HIW) and deaf women (DW), Me (0.95% CI)

The modestly active adults and, particularly, highly active ones, reported growth of the sitting time in Range 4, in min/day: see Figure 1А. The highly active adults falling with this Range may make go to the modestly active group, particularly in spring: see Figure 1B.

Figure 1. Sitting time and classified PA reported by the junior hearing-impaired adults: A- autumn, B- spring (n=40), min/ day

The spring sitting times reported by the HIS and DS were notably shorter than in autumn (F(1.78) = 3.6864, p=0.058), with a clear growth trend for the low active deaf subjects: see Figure 2.

Figure 2. Seasonality of the physical activity reported by the hearing-impaired (HIS) and deaf adult subjects (DS).

It may be pertinent to note the prevalence of the modestly physically active (50-65%) and highly active (35%) individuals, with the share of inactive ones varying under 15%.

Let us consider the PA structure and levels for the hearing-impaired subjects versus the healthy adults. A study of 60 healthy men and women aged 25.1±2.01 years [3] found the total PA medians and confidence intervals making up 2103 (1759; 2931) MET/ min/ week for men and 1467 (1407; 2320) MET/ min/ week for women. The work-related total PA of the healthy adults was estimated at 792 (674.4; 1573) MET/ min/ week for men and 412.5 (365.2; 1084) MET/ min/ week for women. The leisure-time PA was estimated at 99.0 (198.4; 808.4) MET/ min/ week for men and 33.0 (167.1; 643.4) MET/ min/ week for women. The sitting time was found to total 3080 (2679; 3287) MET/ min/ week for women and 2550 (2434; 2926) MET/ min/ week for men. The leisure-time PA of the healthy subjects was found to significantly differ from that of the health-impaired subjects. Furthermore, the health-impaired subjects reported notably lower work-related PA that may be due to the higher unemployment rate in this category. The sitting time reported by the healthy men was found to be higher than that by the hearing-impaired men, whilst no significant difference was found in the women’s groups. The Surgut hearing-impaired and deaf subjects reported much shorter sitting time (5.15 ± 2.1 hours/day) versus the Portuguese subjects (10.1 ± 1.6 hours/day) [7].

On the whole, we have good reasons to assume that hearing impairments have virtually no effect on the physical activity of the Surgut population, rather the hearing deprivations seem to activate the PA of the hearing-impaired subjects. We believe that a facilitating environment needs to be created to motivate and correct the PA of this group of population including special efforts to remove the barriers for the PA with due medical support to monitor the health conditions; due advisory service from the relevant PA specialists; PA logbooks keeping practices; good PA motivations; plus regular progress rating studies to obtain timely data on the effects of the relevant corrective actions.

Conclusion. The hearing-impaired and deaf 20-30 years-old people’s PA profiling data should be used to create a facilitating environment to encourage their leisure-time (discretional) PA and thereby notably improve the total PA of these groups of people. Such facilitating environment may be developed based on special local sport grounds and clubs designed for the local communities in general and for the health-impaired people in particular.

References

1. Boytsov S.A., Potemkina R.A. Profilaktika neinfektsionnykh zabolevaniy i formirovanie zdorovogo obraza zhizni: regionalnye mezhvedomstvennye tselevye programmy kak klyuchevoe reshenie [Prevention of non-communicable diseases and promoting healthy lifestyle: regional interdepartmental target programs as a key solution]. Natsionalnye proekty, 2013, no. 1, pp. 31-35.
2. Vsemirnaya organizatsiya zdravookhraneniya: Globalny plan deystviy po profilaktike neinfektsionnykh zabolevaniy i borbe s nimi na 2013-2020 gg. [World Health Organization: Global Action Plan for NCD prevention and control in the 2013-2020 bilennium]. Available at: https://who.int/ncd.
3. Loginov S.I., Nikolaev A.Yu., Vetoshnikov A.Yu., Sagadeeva S.G. Fizicheskaya aktivnost zhiteley goroda Surguta po dannym mezhdunarodnogo oprosnika IPAQ [Evaluation of Physical Activity of Surgut Residents According to International Questionnaire IPAQ]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2015, no. 1, pp. 83–85.
4. Loginov S.I., Devitsyn I.N., Nikolaev A.Yu. Rashchet i otsenka urovnya i struktury fizicheskoy aktivnosti po dannym mezhdunarodnogo oprosnika IPAQ [Calculation and evaluation of the level and structure of physical activity according to international questionnaire IPAQ]. Certificate of state registration of the computer program no. 2015660418. ROSPATENT. Moscow, 2015.
5. Potemkina R.A. Vrachebnoe konsultirovanie po voprosam fizicheskoy aktivnosti (rekomendatsii dlya vrachey pervichnogo zdravookhraneniya) [Physician counseling on physical activity (recommendations for primary health care physicians)]. Profilakticheskaya meditsina, 2010. no. 3, pp. 24-34.
6. International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Available at: https://sites.google.com/site/theipaq/
7. Menezes D., Laranjo L., Marmeleira J. Criterion-related validity of the short form of the international physical activity questionnaire in adults who are Deaf. Disabil. Health J. 2016 Jun 21. Pii: S1936-6574(16)30093-0. Doi: 10.1016/j.dhjo.2016.06.005.

Corresponding author: logsi@list.ru

Abstract

The study was designed to profile the seasonal everyday physical activity (PA) of the young people diagnosed with different hearing impairments. IPAQ was applied to survey 40 people of 25.9±2.97 years of age with different degrees of the auditory function deficits. One study group was composed of hearing-impaired men (HIM, n=11) and women (HIW, n=9), and the other group of deaf men (DM, n=11) and women (DW, n=9) with the relevant diagnoses. The subjects were requested to fill-in the Russian version of IPAQ in autumn 2015 and spring 2016. The study found the deaf and hearing-impaired subjects being more active (and less sitting) in the spring time versus the autumn time (F (1.78) = 3.6864, p=0.052). The energy costs of the physical activity reported by the deaf subjects were found lower in the spring versus autumn time: 2641 (2564; 4717) versus 2449 (2082; 3268) МЕТ/min per week for the physical activity in metabolic equivalent (p<0.05). The share of the low-active deaf subjects sitting for 6-9 hours per day was found to grow in the spring time from 10% to 15% whilst the hearing-impaired people were found to be modestly active for the whole year. However, the study found among the latter a subgroup of the low-active individuals sitting for 6-9 hours per day and, therefore, being in need of the sitting behaviour correction initiatives like the ones commonly applied to deaf people.