The correlation between physical activity and the use of positive coping strategies and the mediating effect of daily routines in low-income adults

Objectives: This study investigated if doing physical activity was associated with the better use of two types of positive coping strategies, planning and meaning-making in adults with low-socio-economics status and investigated if there were mediating effects of daily routines on the relationship between the amount of physical activity and the use of both planning and meaning-making. Method: 364 adults aged between 20 and 64, with monthly household income less than $28200 (mean age = 40.49, 274 females; 90 males) filled out a five-part questionnaire: demographic sheets, The Godin Shephard Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire (Godin, & Shephard, 1985), Searching for Meaning subscale in the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (Steger, Frazier, Oishi & Kaler, 2006), the planning subscale of COPE Scale (Carver, Scheier & Weintraub, 1989) and a Regularity of Daily Routines scale (Hou, Lai, Hougen, Hall & Hobfoll, 2019). Mediational analysis was used to analyze the data. Results: The results showed that the amount of physical activity was correlated with the use of planning (r = 0.13, p < .05), but not the use of meaning making (r = 0.004, p > .05). There were also mediating effects of daily routines on the relationship between the amount of physical activity and planning (β = 0.07, 95% C.I. = [0.03, 0.11], p = .001) and meaning making (β = .05, 95% C.I. = [0.02, 0.08], p = .003). Conclusion: Findings suggest that the amount of physical activity is related to the use of planning but not the use of meaning making and highlight the importance of daily routines as a mediator. Moreover, the study also finds out the differences of the mediating effects between primary routines and secondary routines which adds more to the limited knowledge. All rights reserved.