Differences between adolescents' and their parents' perceived benefits and barriers to actively commute to school: The PACO y PACA project

Abstract

Introduction: Adolescents' and Parents' perceptions of active commuting to school ACS have been studied mainly separately. This study aims to: (1) examine and compare the benefits and barriers of walking to school perceived by adolescents and their parents within the whole sample, (2) and based on adolescents' modes of commuting to school (walking and using motorized transport). Methods: Third grade adolescents at secondary education from 4 Spanish cities and their parents participated in the PACOyPACA cross-sectional study. All completed a benefits and barriers questionnaires regarding to adolescents walking to school. Descriptive statistics, paired samples t-test and Wilcoxon test were used to identify differences between adolescents' and their parents' perceived benefits and barriers. Results: 466 adolescents (age: 14.86 ± 0.51 years old) and 499 parents (age: 48.00 ± 5.42 years old) entered the study. Results showed that 209 (44.8%) adolescents walked to school, and girls did it significantly less (p < 0.01). Benefits were perceived as significantly more important for parents than for adolescents (p < 0.001) in all cases and regardless of the modes of commuting. As for barriers, adolescents cared significantly more about saving time (p < 0.001), and parents significantly gave more importance to traffic danger and additional planning to walk to school (p < 0.001). When adolescents walked to school, they were significantly more concerned than parents about saving time (p < 0.01), weather and walking being a hassle (p < 0.05), and parents reported traffic as a significantly higher concern than adolescents (p < 0.05). When adolescents commuted to school by motorized transport, they significantly gave more importance than parents to saving time (p = 0.001), and parents reported significantly higher values for additional planning to walk to school (p < 0.001), lack of continuous paths (p < 0.01), distance, weather, and traffic (p < 0.05) than adolescents. Conclusions: Perceived benefits were important for adolescents and parents, regardless of the modes of commuting to school. Adolescents and their parents presented higher concerns when adolescents commuted to school by motorized transport.