Self-reported and tracker-estimated physical activity outcomes in women with chronic pelvic pain disorders: A longitudinal evaluation of construct validity

Tanisee Nagaldinne, Samia Shahnawaz, Suzanne Bakken, Noémie Elhadad, Emma Horan, Carol Ewing-Garber, Jovita Rodrigues, Matteo Danieletto, Kyle Landell, Ipek Ensari
In: medRxiv · 2025 · doi:10.1101/2025.02.10.25322006 · PMID:39990544 · W4407395450
preprint OA: green CC0
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

IPAQ-reported walking and total activity minutes align with tracker-estimated physical activity in women with chronic pelvic pain, but sitting time reports do not.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This paper evaluates construct validity of the short-form International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) for women with chronic pelvic pain disorders by comparing weekly IPAQ self-reports with objectively estimated physical activity captured by Fitbit devices. In a 14-week mHealth self-tracking study including 112 women (966 weeks of data), the authors used linear mixed-effects models to test concordance/divergence across activity domains and quantified between-participant variability and temporal consistency with ICCs; a key limitation explicitly noted is that sedentary time was assessed via IPAQ “sitting time” minutes, which may not align well with tracker-based measures. IPAQ-reported walking minutes and IPAQ total activity minutes showed significant associations with multiple Fitbit outcomes (including step counts and moderate-to-vigorous activity), but IPAQ sitting time was inversely associated with several Fitbit measures, including step counts and MVPA, indicating potential unsuitability for sedentary assessment. Relevance to endometriosis: endometriosis is named as one of the chronic pelvic pain disorders (a CPPD cluster) in the paper’s introduction and context, though the analyses are across women with CPPDs rather than endometriosis specifically.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to evaluate the short form International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) for use in women with chronic pelvic pain disorders (CPPDs) by comparing its scores against objectively-estimated physical activity (PA) outcomes. We investigated IPAQ components that are most consistently predictive of habitual PA behavior. Method: The study sample included 966 weeks of data from 112 women with CPPDs who enrolled in a 14-week mHealth-based self-tracking study. Participants wore Fitbit devices and completed the IPAQ every week. We compared the IPAQ-reported minutes of walking, total activity, sitting, light-, moderate-, and vigorous intensity PA for concordance and divergence against their corresponding Fitbit estimates. We used linear mixed-effects regression models (MLMs) for all analyses and quantified the between-participant variance in the magnitude of agreement between the two methods via random slope terms. We further evaluated temporal consistency in scores using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). Results: IPAQ-reported walking minutes were strongly associated with Fitbit step counts (B = 3952.36; p = 0.006), minutes of moderate PA (B = 15.498; p = 0.0113), and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA; B = 28.973; p = 0.007). IPAQ total activity minutes were associated with Fitbit minutes of vigorous PA (B = 15.183; p = 0.007) and MVPA (B = 25.658; p = 0.010). IPAQ moderate activity minutes were predictive of Fitbit vigorous PA minutes (B = 9.060; SE = 3.719; p = 0.0151). There was substantial between-individual variance in these point estimates based on the significant random-effect terms, and average weekly PA level was a significant moderator of the association between IPAQ-reported and Fitbit-estimated scores for these variables. IPAQ-reported sitting minutes were inversely associated with Fitbit step counts (B = -3125.61; p = 0.004), and minutes of MVPA (B = -21.848; p = 0.007), vigorous AP (B = -10.854; p = 0.042), and moderate PA (B = -10.985; p = 0.004). Conclusion: These findings provide support for using IPAQ-reported walking and total activity minutes to monitor several PA domains in women with CPPDs, given their concordance with several tracker-estimated PA outcomes. However, the item on "sitting time" may not be a suitable for assessing sedentary time.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

chronic_pelvic_pain

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (58)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-05-20T01:45:00.602351+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK