Scoring protocol for the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ)

The document “Guidelines for Data Processing and Analysis of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ)”, available as a Pdf file below under Scoring protocol, contains a detailed description of how to analyse data from the IPAQ, including recommendations for data cleaning and processing.

The scoring protocol was slightly revised in November 2005 and is now a combined protocol for both the long and the short form of the IPAQ instrument.

Briefly, based on an individual's responses, their physical activity level can be expressed continuously, or categorised.

Continuous Score

This is suggested to be expressed as MET-min per week: MET level x minutes of activity x events per week.

1. Please find the exact figures for MET values for each domain and intensity in the Pdf file below.

Categorical Score

Three levels are proposed:

Category 1: Low

This is the lowest level of physical activity. Those individuals who not meet criteria for categories 2 or 3 are considered low/inactive.

Category 2: Moderate

Any one of the following three criteria:

• 3 or more days of vigorous activity of at least 20 minutes per day OR

• 5 or more days of moderate-intensity activity or walking of at least 30 minutes per day OR

• 5 or more days of any combination of walking, moderate-intensity or vigorous intensity activities achieving a minimum of at least 600 MET-min/week.

Category 3: High

Any one of the following two criteria:

• Vigorous-intensity activity on at least 3 days and accumulating at least 1500 MET-minutes/week OR

• 7 or more days of any combination of walking, moderate-intensity or vigorous intensity activities achieving a minimum of at least 3000 MET-minutes/week

Scoring protocol

Automatic feedback at individual level

Please also find Excel files for the automatic calculation of data from IPAQ.

The file was created by Andrea Di Blasio, Francesco Di Donato and Christian Mazzocco at the Endocrinology Unit, Department of Medicine and Aging Sciences, G. d'Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara (Italy). The file was updated in July 2016 and is available in English, Italian and Spanish.