Background/Purpose: Physical activity (PA) reduces joint symptoms in people with osteoarthritis (PWOA), but most PWOA get insufficient PA. They would benefit from small but sustained increases in PA, but PA interventions usually elicit short-lived increases. Social support is a reliable predictor of PA, and partners (e.g., a spouse) can provide support that helps PWOAs make lasting increases in PA (e.g., by providing encouragement or joining in PA). Yet, partner support may also fail to provide intended resources (i.e., PWOAs may appraise it as “ineffective”–a poor match for their need for a certain quality and quantity of support). Partners may also provide solicitous support that hinders behavior change (e.g., well-intentioned discouragement of activity in favor of rest). The purpose of this dyadic study was to examine these aspects of partner support for PA, as reported by PWOA (“support received”) and their partner (“support provided”).

Methods: 173 couples, with PWOAs who had hip or knee OA and were insufficiently active, completed a couples-focused PA intervention with 3-hours of in-person education and 12-weeks of workbook activities. They also completed questionnaires and wore accelerometers at baseline and at 1-week and 3-, 6-, and 12-months post-intervention. We used multilevel modeling to examine support received and provided as predictors of PWOAs’ moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) and sedentary behavior across these timepoints.

Results: Models adjusted for sociodemographic covariates revealed that PWOAs’ MVPA at each timepoint was higher for PWOAs who reported receiving more encouragement for PA from their partner (p<.01) and those who reported that their partner joined in their PA (p =.02). PWOAs’ MPVA was also higher when partners reported joining in their PA (p=.03). PWOAs’ appraised effectiveness of this support did not moderate its association with MVPA, nor were partners’ solicitous behaviors (as reported by PWOAs or partners) associated with MVPA. In addition, an interaction showed a negative association between partner-reported solicitous support and PWOA sedentary behavior when PWOAs appraised this support as relatively ineffective (i.e., a poor match for their needs). This association was attenuated among PWOAs who appraised the effectiveness of their partner’s solicitous support more favorably (i.e., a better match for their needs; p=.02). A similar interaction occurred for partner-provided joining in PA (p=.048).

Conclusion: These findings highlight different pathways by which to change MVPA and sedentary behavior and have implications for designing couples-based PA interventions that elicit lasting behavior change that thus ensure that PWOAs get the health benefits of PA.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/social-support-in-couples-focused-physical-activity-interventions-for-people-with-hip-or-knee-osteoarthritis-what-kinds-of-partner-support-are-associated-with-increases-in-physical-activity-and/