Facilitators and barriers to physical activity in patients in an acute care hospital setting from an interprofessional perspective: A qualitative study.

Only staff from a single German university hospital were interviewed, so views may not apply to other hospitals or countries. Participants were recruited partly through personal contacts, which may have selected people already interested in physical activity. Focus groups were held separately for each profession, so interprofessional disagreement or collaboration in practice was not observed. The study reports perceptions of facilitators and barriers, not patient activity levels or effects of any intervention.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. Funding came from the ZVK-Foundation, a foundation for physiotherapy research and evaluation, and the funder was not involved in any part of the study.

Do not read these themes as evidence that improving health literacy or changing ward routines increases patient physical activity. The study asked healthcare professionals what they thought helped or blocked activity; it did not measure patient outcomes or test an intervention.