RESEARCH UPDATE Cystic Fibrosis Ireland caught up with Ms Nicola Hurley, final year PhD student in DCU to hear an update about her most recent research publication. What is the Title of your Research? Recommendations to Improve Physical Activity Prescription for the Cystic Fibrosis Population: An Irish Perspective Who are your co-authors? Nicola Hurley, Bróna Kehoe (my Supervisor), Noel McCaffrey (Director of ExWell Chronic Illness Rehabilitation), Karen Redmond (Cardiothoracic Surgeon and supervisor), Lydia Cullen (Senior CF Physio), Niall Moyna (DCU Professor and Supervisor). What were your research questions for this paper? We hoped to answer the following: • What level of education do CF healthcare professionals receive at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, with respect to physical activity prescription for CF populations? • What level of knowledge do CF healthcare professionals have, with respect to the current consensus guidelines (ECFS) and physical activity prescription for CF populations? • Are CF healthcare professionals actively prescribing physical activity to their CF patients? How frequently? Are they employing the current consensus guidelines? Is advice written, verbal or a combination of both? • What barriers challenge or prevent CF healthcare professionals from prescribing physical activity to their CF patients? How is this question important to PWCF? It is important as we know physical activity is deemed as central to the management of CF, as a result of the incredible associated benefits (improvements in exercise tolerance, aerobic capacity, muscle strength, bone density, sputum expectoration, decreased hospital admissions, pulmonary exacerbations and a slower rate of decline in pulmonary function). Patient outcomes can improve dramatically with appropriate and evidence-based physical activity prescription and promotion. What did you do? I conducted a 30-item online survey (SurveyMonkey) among 48 CF healthcare professionals from 6 CF centres across Ireland, to identify i) the level of education received at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels, with respect to physical activity prescription and promotion, ii) the level of knowledge among CF healthcare professionals with respect to the current consensus guidelines (as published by the ECFS), iii) to evaluate to what extent physical activity was being actively prescribed and promoted by CF healthcare professionals, and iv) what barriers prevented or challenged the healthcare professionals from prescribing physical activity to their patients – from this we were able to develop a list of recommendations to be employed to improve physical activity prescription by the healthcare professional, to improve outcomes in PWCF. www.cfireland.ie
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