BioPsychoSocial Assessment Tools for the Elderly - Assessment Summary Sheet

Test: Yale Physical Activity Survey (YPAS)

Year: 1988

Domain: Biological

Assessment Tool Category: Physical Function/Activities of Daily Living

Variations/Translations: Spanish

Setting: Home

Method of Delivery: Interview

Description: This survey was developed to determine the type, amount and patterning of physical activity/exercise in older adults. The tool is composed of two sections – (a) amount of physical activity/exercise performed during a typical week in the past month and (b) activities performed in the past month. In section one, participants are handed a checklist of activity categories (work, exercise, and recreational activities) and are asked how often during the past week they performed a particular activity from each category.

Scoring/Interpretation: In the first section the time for each YPAS checklist activity is multiplied by an intensity code and then summed for all activities to create an energy expenditure summary index (kcal/wk). In the second section, activities performed in the last month are calculated by multiplying a frequency score by a duration score for each of the five specific activities (vigorous, leisurely walking, moving, standing and sitting) and multiplying again by a weighting factor. Weights are based on the relative intensity of the activity dimension. The final index is the sum of these five individual indices.

Time to Administer: Requires approximately 20 minutes to complete

Availability: Available for free (see website) 

Software: N/A – Available in paper format only

Website: http://dapa-toolkit.mrc.ac.uk/documents/en/Yal/Yale_Physical_Activity_Survey.pdf

Quantitative/Qualitative: Quantitative

Validity (Quantitative): Moderate construct validity for diverse ethnic populations, however lacks internal validity. Solomito Pugh (2006) suggest that validity differed between age groups and further studies are needed to assess the validity of this questionnaire against additional construct and criterion measure from a wide variety of demographics.

Reliability (Quantitative): Test-retest reliability shows good agreement, in terms of ranking the levels of reported activity, for several indices (0.42-0.65). Reliability of reporting more vigorous activities is higher than for moderate and low intensity activities.

References:

De Abajo, S., Larriba, R. & Marquez, S. (2001). Validity and reliability of the Yale Physical Activity Survey in Spanish elderly. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, 41(4), 479-485.

DiPietro, L., Caspersen, C. J., Ostfeld, A. M. & Nadel, E. R. (1993). A survey for assessing physical activity among older adults. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 25(5), 628-642.

Kruskall, L. J., Campbell, W. W., & Evans, W. J. (2004). The Yale Physical Activity Survey for older adults: Predictions in the energy expenditure due to physical activity. Journal of the American Dietetics Association, 104, 1251-1257.

Solomita Pugh, A.N. (2006). Validity of the Yale Physical Activity Survey for older adults. Retrieved from Louisiane State University Digital Dissertations.

Young, D., Jee, S. and Appel, L. (2001). A comparison of the Yale Physical Activity Survey with other physical activity measures. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 33(6), 955-961.

Comments: The Spanish version of the YPAS proved to be a reasonably valid and reliable measure of physical activity in older adults.