Physical activity in the park setting (PA-PS) questionnaire: Reliability in a California Statewide sample

Background: The Physical Activity in Parks Setting (PA-PS) instrument is a series of survey questions designed by a consortium of public health and leisure research scholars to gauge park-based physical activity for use in civilian, noninstitutionalized populations. This paper introduces this self-reported instrument and provides test-retest reliability results. Methods: Data to test the instrument reliability were collected during 2 waves in 2008 through the California Outdoor Recreation Opinions and Attitudes Telephone Survey. To conduct testretest reliability we examined the agreement between 100 randomly reselected respondents from the first wave of respondents (n = 2004) that answered the same survey within 21 to 30 days of the initial administration. Results: The reliability of measures that categorized individual park use and visitation with others provided moderate levels of agreement (Kappa = 0.44 to 0.64). Questions about park features, facilities and amenity use, and specific parkbased physical activity participation were of fair to substantial agreement (Kappa = 0.21 to 0.90) depending on the item in question. Conclusion: The results from these test-retest reliability analyses suggest the PA-PS items were reliable and should be considered in future population surveys that assess park visitation patterns and park-based physical activity levels.