A Content Analysis of African Americans' Experience of Engaging in Qigong Exercise Intervention in a Community Setting.

Introduction: Although an increasing number of African Americans 50 years of age and older practice qigong, a mind-body exercise, to manage their health conditions, little is known about their perceptions and experiences of engaging in and learning qigong exercise. This study aimed to explore the subjective perceptions of the health benefits, engagement, adherence, and learning of qigong exercise in African Americans 45-85 years of age as a foundation for promoting this approach for African Americans' physical and psychological health. Methods: Fifteen African Americans were enrolled in a 1-h qigong exercise program twice a week for 8 weeks (a total of 16 sessions) in the activity center of a local church. Participants were interviewed after the intervention to explore their perceptions of learning and practicing qigong exercise. Interviews were conducted in person, audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using content analysis. Results: Five themes emerged: (1) Perceived benefits of practicing qigong, (2) helpful strategies for qigong learning, (3) facilitators for home qigong practice, (4) motivators for qigong exercise adherence, and (5) recommending qigong to others. qigong exercise was perceived to be effective for balance, flexibility, muscle strength, sleep quality, emotion regulation, and stress management. Nearly 75% of participants reported home qigong practice at least twice a week. Conclusions: Middle-age and older African Americans' responses provide insights on health benefits associated with practicing qigong exercise, adherence, home practice, and learning, which may serve as the first step to promoting the use of qigong exercise in this population and may be adopted to similar exercise interventions with minority older adults in the future.

Effects of Qigong Exercise on Physical and Psychological Health among African Americans.

Interventions are needed to address physical and psychological health in middle-aged and older African Americans (AAs). The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility and potential benefits of an eight-week Qigong exercise on physical ability and function, balance, frailty, depression and anxiety, and spiritual well-being in AAs using a single-group design. Fifteen AAs with a mean age of 64 years received Qigong exercise over 16 semi-weekly, one-hour sessions. The majority were female (93.3%) and college-level educated (53.3%). Repeat chair stands, physical function, and spiritual well-being improved significantly (p < .05) with effect sizes ranging from .45 to .87. Over 52% of participants showed improved depression scores, fast gait speed, and standing balance. Nearly 42% demonstrated some frailty improvement over baseline. No adverse events were reported. Qigong exercise potentially improves the physical ability and function, and spiritual well-being of AAs and needs further testing in a randomized clinical trial.

Intervention fidelity in Qigong randomized controlled trials: A method review.

Intervention fidelity has important implications for the reliability and validity of a study. Despite the widely reported health benefits of Qigong exercise interventions, the quality of intervention fidelity is less clear. The purpose of this paper is to use a valid intervention fidelity assessment tool to evaluate how intervention fidelity has been addressed in five areas-design, training, delivery, receipt, and enactment-in Qigong randomized controlled studies. A total of 86 articles were drawn from CINAHL, PubMed, AMED, and Scopus, and 32 were selected for the review. The adherence to intervention fidelity strategies within the intervention design, training, delivery, receipt, and enactment was 0.66, 0.32, 0.22, 0.12, and 0.21, respectively. The findings suggest that intervention fidelity is inadequately implemented or reported in published Qigong studies. Developing a consistent intervention fidelity plan for Qigong interventions is needed. To this aim, we propose a treatment fidelity plan specific to Qigong research.