Healthcare Professionals' Habits of Physical Activity and Their Confidence to Prescribe/Counsel Physical Activity in Hospital Setting, Ethiopia

The purpose of this study is to assess healthcare professionals’ physical activity habits and their confidence to prescribe for chronic (non-communicable) diseases in hospital setting through a cross-sectional survey design. Seven sample hospitals were selected randomly based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria from 12 hospitals. The sample size was determined by using the formula for estimating a single population proportion. The mean score of the participants' confidence was (N = 369, M= 21.7 ± 6.36), indicates that above half of healthcare professionals were had moderate confidence to counsel/prescribe physical activity. The majority of (73.7%) of healthcare professionals reported doing moderate level of physical activity, only 2.8% of participants in the study were categorized as vigorous and 23.5% of the respondents were categorized as low physical activity level. Personal physical activity levels was significantly and positively correlated with confidence of HCPs to prescribe/counsel PA (r s =.266, p =.00). Hence, the more physically active the participants, they were had a greater confidence to prescribe/counsel about physical activity for their patients.