Managers’ attitudes to active breaks in the work environment: a survey

Purpose: Sedentary Behaviour (SB) is described as any waking activity characterized by an energy expenditure B 1.5 Metabolic Equivalent of Tasks (METs), and it is closely related to adverse health effects. The World Health Organization (WHO) highlights the workplace’s critical role in promoting healthy lifestyles, preventing non-communicable diseases and reducing musculoskeletal disorders. In this context, Active Breaks (ABs) are being proposed as a useful intervention to reduce SB. Despite the evidence, ABs have not gained widespread acceptance in workplaces. The aim of this study is to evaluate managers’ attitudes towards incorporating ABs within their workplace environment using a national survey. Methods: The survey was created ad-hoc, composed of several questions with 5-point Likert scale responses. The survey was sent through mail and advertisements to public and private managers active in the national territory. The study has previously received the approval of the Bioethics Committee of the University of Bologna. The answers were analyzed by comparing them based on age (B 45 years or[45 years), gender, public or private company and knowledge of ABs. The following statistical tests were carried out using the IBM SPSS Statistics software (SPSS): Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test to verify the distribution of data, Median Test and Kruskal– Wallis Test. Results: A total of 19 managers filled out the questionnaire (12 private— 7 public; 15 male—4 female; 8 B 45 years–11[45 years; 3 of them reported previous knowledge of ABs, and 16 did not). Managers with age B 45 years reported that their employees would increase their attention during the working day after engaging in ABs (p = 0.04*). Public managers consider that prolonged sitting leads to more physical issues (p = 0.03*); however, they perceived ABs as noisy (p = 0.05). No statistically significant results regarding gender and knowledge of ABs were found. Conclusions: Despite the small and heterogeneous sample, the results obtained allowed to better understand managers’ attitudes and how to introduce the execution of ABs in the workplace.