Psychometric Factors Affecting Female Employees Physical Activity Status: Applying Trans-Theoretical Model and Theory of Planned Behavior

Introduction & Sedentary women are at risk for problems such as obesity, diabetes, depression and cardiovascular disease. Meanwhile, due to long working hours and excessive travel time from home to work and vice versa the employees have minimal physical activity. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effective psychometric factors on physical activity of female employees, according to the Trans-theoretical Model and theory of planned behavior. In this cross-sectional study, 95 female staff of Tehran University was selected through a call. In order to collect data, a questionnaire with acceptable, reliability and validity, including demographic data, and constructs of planned behavior theory as well as Trans-theoretical Model was used. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 21 statisti-cal tests; correlation and stepwise regression were also performed. In this study, 72% of the population was in the inactive stages (pre-contemplation, contemplation and preparation) and only 28% of patients had regular physical activity. There was a significant positive correlation between the behavioral intention and attitude scores (P = 0.02), perceived behavioral control (P = 0.000), self-efficacy (P = 0.000) and stage of change (P = 0.000), but subjective norms score (P = 0.605) was irrelevant. The results of this study showed that self-efficacy and perceived behavioral con-trol can affect female employees’ intention and physical activity behaviors. So, the authori-ties should seriously consider these factors in educational planning for this stratum of society, remove barriers for the participation of more employees in sporting activities, and offer fa-cilitators at the community level.