Comparability of activity monitors used in Asian and Western-country studies for assessing free-living sedentary behaviour

This study aims to compare the outputs of the waist-worn Active style Pro HJA-350IT (ASP; used in studies with Asian populations), the waist-worn ActiGragh™GT3X+ using the normal filter (GT3X+) and the thigh-worn activPAL3 (AP) in assessing adults’ sedentary behaviour (total sedentary time, number of breaks) under free-living conditions. Fifty healthy workers wore the three monitors simultaneously during their waking hours on two days, including a work day and a non-work day. Valid data were at least 10 hours of wearing time, and the differences between monitors on the sedentary outputs using the AP as criterion measurement were analyzed by ANOVA. The number of participants who had complete valid data for work day and non-work day was 47 and 44, respectively. Total sedentary time and breaks estimated by the AP were respectively 466.5 ± 146.8 min and 64.3 ± 24.9 times on the work day and 497.7 ± 138.3 min and 44.6 ± 15.4 times on the non-work day. In total sedentary time, the ASP estimated 29.7 min (95%CI = 7.9 to 51.5) significantly shorter than the AP on the work day but showed no significant difference against the AP on the non-work day. The GT3X+ estimated 80.1 min (54.6 to 105.6) and 52.3 (26.4 to 78.2) significantly longer than the AP on the work day and the non-work day, respectively. For the number of breaks from sedentary time, on both days, the ASP and the GT3X+ estimated significantly more than the AP: 14.1 to 15.8 times (6.3 to 22.5) for the ASP and 27.7 to 28.8 times (21.8 to 34.8) for the GT3X+. Compared to the AP as the criterion, the ASP can underestimate total sedentary time and the GT3X+ can overestimate it, and more so at the lower levels of sedentary time. For breaks from sedentary time, compared to the AP, both the GT3X+ the ASP can overestimate.