Adolescent’s Perspective on Physical Activity: Exploration from Rural and Urban Area in South Sulawesi Indonesia

Abstract

Background: Understanding about adolescent’s perspective about physical activity (PA) is important, as basic source to create an affective intervention. However, the perspective related knowledge on physical activity behavior of adolescents have not yet been explored in a qualitative study. This study purpose to explore adolescent’s perception about PA in the context of the urban and rural area environment. Method: Snowball sampling technique was used to get total 20 students from urban and rural area respectively. Students aged 13 to 15 years were involved in the offline and online interview (by a videocall through WhatsApp) with semi structured questions guideline. Interview guidelines consisting of five item topic questions and each topic has a different number of questions, with total 17 questions. This study also involved the photovoice procedures, such as photo-taking, selecting, contextualizing and codifying themes. NVivo 12 software for qualitative data analysis. Results: Youth in urban area had good and better perspective about the benefits of physical activity compare with adolescents in rural area. However, adolescents in rural area had better understanding about the definition of PA. As well as, both youth in urban and rural area had little understanding about the recommendation of PA duration for adolescents. Conclusion: It is suggested that health promotion and education about the benefits of physical activity is urgently needed for adolescents in rural. Both youth from urban and rural area need education about PA recommendation for youth