Factors which influence nurses to promote physical activities among psychiatric patients

Abstract

This study addresses the importance of promoting physical activities among psychiatric patients and its goals were to identify the changing behavior potential of the nurses as well as to identify the nurse staff beliefs regarding the benefits of physical activity with the patients, to characterize the way in which these activities are managed inside the psychiatric hospital and finally, to identify the factors which influence the promotion of these activities in the mentioned environment. The fourteen nurses interviewed believe in the benefits of physical exercise, but only nine of them do training. Based on the Matsudo questionnaire (8), we have noticed that 50% of them are in the action stage, 42.9% are in contemplative stage and only 7.1% are in the pre-contemplative stage.