ABSTRACT
Background/Aim: Globally, many people engage in insufficient physical activity and sedentary behaviour which are key risk factors of NCDs and has caused a lot of preventable deaths. Due to the observed insufficient information on physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour in Nigeria, this study aimed to give a broader overview, explore and provide baseline information on the prevalence and correlates of sedentary behaviour and physical inactivity in Nigeria.
Methods: Medline via Ovid, EMBASE via Ovid, PsycINFO, Web of Science Core collections, CINAHL & SPORTDiscus via EBSCOhost, AJOL, Google scholar, PROQUEST, MSPACE, AJPHES and chronic illness were the electronic databases searched for published studies and grey literature. Inclusion criteria comprised studies published in English language, involving adults aged 18 years and above, and cross-sectional studies, longitudinal/cohort studies, descriptive studies, case-control studies that examined the prevalence and correlates of sedentary behaviour and physical inactivity in Nigeria. A narrative synthesis was used to present the findings.
Results: A total of 19 studies (17 cross sectional, 1 cohort and 1 descriptive study) involving 17,394 participants with females having more dominance were included in this review. The review recorded a high average prevalence of physical inactivity to be 35.57% which ranged from 4.7% to 58.9% across several populations. Significant correlates for physical inactivity were classified into sociodemographics, environmental, socioeconomic, biological, psychological, health behavioural and lifestyle variables while significant correlates for sedenatary behaviour included sociodemographics, biological and socioeconomic variables.
Conclusion: The cumulative evidence showed a high prevalence of physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour with age, gender, marital status, BMI, educational level, employment status, urban residence, income and parity as consistent significantly associated correlates. However, there is need for further research to explore other populations and also explore objective methods while collecting data in order to generate more accurate results.
Registration: The review protocol was developed, registered and made publicly available through the Open Science Framework database with DOI https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/K8Y32
Keywords: Physical inactivity, Sedentary behaviour, prevalence, correlates, non-communicable diseases
