Interventions to increase physical activities among students of Tay Bac University in the school year 2021 - 2022: Some initial results

Abstract

A comparative study was carried before and after intervention with a intervention group and control group to aim evaluating some outcomes of interventions to increase physical activities for students of Tay Bac University in the school year 2021 – 2022. The intervention group had 126 students of Tay Bac University, and the control group had 126 students of Son La College. The intervention was conducted from June to December 2021 at Tay Bac University. The study used the International Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ) of the World Health Organization (WHO) which was standardized, as the main measure of the change in physical activities before and after intervention. Results show that the intervention group had the rate of physical activities increased by 29.3% compared to before the intervention. In the control group, the rate of enough physical activities decreased by 0,8%. The comparison between the 2 groups showed that, before the intervention, the rate of enough physical activities in the control group was higher than the intervention group (73.8% compared with 67.5%), but after the intervention, the rate of enough physical activities of the intervention group was much higher than the control group (96.8% compared with 73.0%). These results initially demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of implementing interventions to increase physical activities among students.