Perceived physical activity barriers among university students: A multinational CART based segmentation analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55040/2vn1dr52Keywords:
health-promoting universities, young adults, behavioural segmentation, socioecological model, CART analysisAbstract
Universities constitute strategic settings for promoting active lifestyles during a critical period for the consolidation of health-related behaviours. This study examined perceived barriers to physical activity (PA) among university students from Chile, Spain, Italy, and Mexico and explored barrier-associated classification patterns using Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis. A cross-sectional study included 686 university students (60.8% women; age = 22.4 ± 5.1 years). Habitual PA was assessed using the IPAQ-SF, and perceived barriers were measured with the BBAQ-21. Seven barrier domains were initially analysed using a common CART specification, with barrier presence defined by a domain score ≥5. Four domains—lack of time, lack of social support, lack of energy, and lack of willpower—showed non-zero sensitivity for the corresponding barrier category and were therefore retained for the primary segmentation analysis. Cumulative barrier burden differed significantly across countries (H(3) = 64.261, p < .001, ε² = .090), with the highest burden in Mexico. Lack of energy (39.6%), lack of time (37.7%), and lack of willpower (35.6%) were the most prevalent barriers. The four retained CART models identified distinct hierarchical classification patterns involving behavioural, academic, socioeconomic, and contextual characteristics, with classification accuracies ranging from 65.0% to 73.4% and 10-fold cross-validated risks from .276 to .400. These findings indicate that perceived PA barriers are heterogeneous and may require context-sensitive rather than uniform intervention strategies. CART provides an interpretable exploratory approach for identifying barrier-associated subgroups and generating hypotheses to inform targeted PA promotion within Health Promoting Universities.
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