There is growing recognition of the benefits and safety of exercise and its importance in the comprehensive care of persons with multiple sclerosis (MS), yet uptake is low.
We explored the needs and wants of patients with MS regarding exercise promotion through healthcare providers.
Participants were adults with MS who had mild-or-moderate disability and a range of exercise levels. All participants lived in the Midwest of the United States.
Fifty semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed using thematic analysis. Two themes emerged, namely interactions between patients and healthcare providers and needs and wants of patients.
Analysis of participant accounts illustrate that current exercise promotion by healthcare providers does not meet patient needs and wants. The identified needs and wants of persons with MS involved (i) information and knowledge on the benefits of exercise and exercise prescription, (ii) materials to allow home and community exercise and (iii) tools for initiating and maintaining exercise behaviour.
Patients with MS frequently interact with healthcare providers and are generally unsatisfied with exercise promotion during interactions. Healthcare providers can address the low uptake of exercise among persons with MS by acting upon the identified unmet needs involving materials, knowledge and behaviour change strategies for exercise.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 9. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 05 July 2019.
All research outputs
#4,899,954
of 29,700,626 outputs
Outputs from Health Expectations
#599
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Outputs of similar age
#63,307
of 319,182 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Health Expectations
#9
of 19 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 29,700,626 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 83rd percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,077 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.7. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 319,182 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 80% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 19 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 52% of its contemporaries.
