BACKGROUND

Experimental research has established the benefits of interrupting prolonged periods of sedentary behaviour in the evening with regular activity breaks. Research should now focus on how people can be encouraged and supported to engage in this behaviour. This study explores the barriers and facilitators unique to performing regular activity breaks in the evening mapped to the Capability Opportunity and Motivation model of Behaviour (COM-B), to inform future free-living intervention development.

METHODS

Individual, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 participants (female n = 20, mean (SD) age 25.4 (5.5) years) who had participated in a laboratory-based, evening regular activity breaks intervention. Questions explored barriers and facilitators to incorporating regular activity breaks into their everyday lives at home in the evening. The interview transcripts were analyzed inductively first using thematic analysis, and then mapped, where relevant, to the COM-B model to link the themes to theoretical factors influencing behaviour change.

RESULTS

'Awareness of the benefits' of performing regular activity breaks, along with having the 'Memory and attention required to change behaviour' (e.g., reminders to overcome forgetfulness) influenced participant's psychological capability to perform this behaviour in the evening at home. 'Characteristics of the regular activity break exercises' enhanced physical capability as the exercises were easy and simple. The theme 'Social influences on behaviour' was mapped to social opportunity and described that others present in their home environment could support or hinder the behaviour, dependent on whether they were also taking regular activity breaks or not. 'Motivation' such as working towards a goal (facilitator) or not wanting to interrupt current sedentary behaviours (barrier) explained how reflective motivation, could influence taking regular activity breaks. Additionally, this theme explained how laziness, tiredness and reinforcement of sedentary behaviour via the nature of streaming services could hinder individuals' automatic motivation to perform regular activity breaks in their habitual evening routines.

CONCLUSIONS

Capability, opportunity and motivation were all perceived to influence individuals' ability to interrupt habitual evening sedentary behaviour by performing regular activity breaks. To encourage people to perform this behaviour, a multicomponent intervention is required to improve capability by understanding the benefits, opportunity by utilizing social support and motivation by creating goals and action planning.