The length of stay in community physical activity program does not exceed two years

Abstract

The aim of this study was to estimate the length of stay of participants in a Community Physical Activity Program (CPAP). This is a retrospective cohort study that estimated the length of stay of 727 participants (55.16 +12.78 years) stratified into three age groups (Group 1: 18-35 years, group 2: 36-59 years; Group 3: above 60 years) in a CPAP by observing evaluations performed by the program during the period of 26.5 months. Survival Analysis was applied by the Kaplan Meier method to analyze the length of stay of participants and Log-Rank to estimate the length of stay in relation to the age groups considered in the study. Significance level of 5 % was adopted in all analyses. The mean length of stay of participants was 16 + 7.9 months. Of the 727 participants, only six (0.08%) remained the entire cohort. The highest dropout (68%) was observed in the first year of CPAP. When considering the age groups, difference statistically significant (p=0.025) was observed among length of stay of participants, and individuals in Group 1, with mean length of stay of 12.4 ± 6.2 months, did not remain after 20 month of program and for the other two groups, this time was 16 ± 7.9 months. The maximum length of stay of participants in the program was approximately two years and most participants dropped out in the first year and a greater permanence of adults and elderly subjects was observed.