Identifying barriers and facilitators to physical activity for people with scleroderma: a nominal group technique study.

Purpose: People with systemic sclerosis (scleroderma) face difficulties being physically active. This study identified physical activity barriers and facilitators experienced by people with scleroderma. Materials and methods: We conducted nominal group technique sessions with scleroderma patients who shared physical activity barriers, barrier-specific facilitators, and general facilitators. Participants rated importance of barriers and likelihood of using facilitators from 0 to 10, and indicated whether they had tried facilitators. Barriers and facilitators across sessions were merged to eliminate overlap; edited by investigators, patient advisors, and clinicians; and categorized using qualitative content analysis. Results: We conducted 9 sessions (n=41 participants) and initially generated 181 barriers, 457 barrierspecific facilitators, and 20 general facilitators. The number of consolidated barriers (barrier-specific facilitators in parentheses) per category were: 14 (61) for health and medical; 4 (23) for social and personal; 1 (3) for time, work, and lifestyle; and 1 (4) for environmental. There were 12 consolidated general facilitators. The consolidated items with ≥ 1/3 of participants' ratings ≥-8 were: 15 barriers, 69 barrier-specific facilitators, and 9 general facilitators. Conclusions: Scleroderma patients reported many barriers related to health and medical aspects of scleroderma and several barriers in other categories. They reported facilitators to remain physically active despite the barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]