Samenvatting

Obesity and lack of physical activity are risk factors for health problems. Dropout from physical activity interventions in overweight adults is considerable. Suffering and a poor quality of life have been demonstrated to be a cue to initiate exercise interventions. Our aim was to evaluate these variables as predictors of exercise compliance. Of 44 obese adults who participated in two physical exercise programmes, 21 (47%) completed the programme. Suffering was assessed with the Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure, second revised version (PRISM-R2) and quality of life with the Impact of Weight on Quality of Life-lite (IWQOL-Lite) questionnaire. As compared to non-completers, completers were older and reported less suffering and a higher quality of life. Our study suggests that intake assessments of suffering and quality of life can be helpful to identify participants who need extra counselling.