Early and continued participation in a work-site health and fitness program

This study examines social-environmental, physical-behavioral, and psychological factors influencing early and continued participation in physical activity. Data for the study were collected during the first six months of operation of a work-site Health and Fitness Center. The following sources were used to collect data (N = 403): 1) printouts of frequency of employee visits to the Health and Fitness Center; 2) a questionnaire; and 3) fitness files. Data measuring early (month one) and continued (month six) participation were obtained from printouts of frequency of employee visits. A questionnaire measured estimation of physical ability, attraction to physical activity, youth participation, social support, and convenience of the Health and Fitness Center. Fitness files were used to obtain measures of cardiovascular fitness, percent body fat, and recent participation. Linear discriminant analysis was conducted to determine the practical usefulness of the social-environmental, physical-behavioral, and psychological factors for classifying employees into categories of exercise adherers and nonadherers. A measure of exercise adherence was based on company policy of six visits each month. Results for early participation (month one) indicated that convenience, sex, youth participation, attitudinal commitment, and age discriminated (p less than .05) among adherers and nonadherers with 63% accuracy. At the end of six months, attitudinal commitment, sex, convenience, and estimation of physical ability discriminated (p less than .05) among adherers and non-adherers with 60% accuracy. In addition, when early participation in the health and fitness program served as the measure of recent participation for the six month analysis, recent participation and attitudinal commitment discriminated (p less than .05) between the two adherence categories with 75% accuracy. Adherers and nonadherers were classified with 66% and 85% accuracy, respectively.     

Phosphate loading and the effects on VO2max in trained cyclists

It is known that an increased level of red blood cell 2,3-diphosphoglycerate (DPG) shifts the oxyhemoglobin dissociation curve to the right, thus allowing a greater unloading of oxygen at the tissue level. It has been hypothesized that phosphate might help increase VO2max by increasing 2,3-DPG level. Eight trained cyclists underwent three cycle ergometer tests (control, placebo, and experimental) to determine whether phosphate ingestion had any positive effect on VO2max, time to exhaustion, serum 2,3-DPG, and serum phosphate levels. We found no change between the control, placebo, or experimental conditions in pretest serum phosphate levels, but we did find increases in 2,3-DPG levels in the phosphate condition (p less than .05), which suggests that even a small amount of phosphate could increase levels of 2,3-DPG. We also found significant differences in VO2max between the control (p less than .05) and placebo (p less than .02) conditions and also in time to exhaustion between the three conditions (p less than .05). We suggest that phosphate may have an ergogenic effect, but clearly more work needs to be undertaken to ascertain the amount of phosphate required and the magnitude of the effect.     

Medical student, resident, and faculty use of a computerized literature searching system

The experiences of medical students, residents, and faculty with a computerized literature searching system were evaluated. Third-year medical students, internal medicine and family practice residents, and full-time and voluntary faculty at one medical school had the opportunity to use a full-text and bibliographic medical literature retrieval system free of charge for an eleven-month period. Subjects conducted nearly nine thousand literature searches over a period of 942 system hours. Questionnaire data showed that participants could learn to use and would use an electronic information system, felt capable of using the system, utilized the system for a variety of purposes and in a number of different ways, and viewed the system as a valuable tool in searching the medical literature. The results are discussed in the context of the educational needs of the four user-groups and medical education planning by institutions.