Table 5.

Family medicine residents’ self-reported competence prescribing exercise to healthy patients and patients with chronic non-communicable disease

Exercise Rx Skill	Competence1,2	Healthy Patients		Patients with chronic noncommunicable disease (NCD)
		%	n	%	n
Conducting a clinical assessment (clear for exercise)	Incompetent	29.3	82	50	140
	Neutral	12.1	34	15	43
	Competent	58.6	164	34.6	97
	Total mean (max score 7) (95% CI)	4.46 (4.29–4.63)		3.69 (3.52–3.86)
Prescribing aerobic exercise (type, frequency, intensity, duration)	Incompetent	19.4	54	43.6	122
	Neutral	12.9	36	13.9	39
	Competent	67.6	188	42.5	119
	Total mean (max score 7) (95% CI)	4.75 (4.59–4.91)		3.95 (3.79–4.11)
Prescribing strength or resistance exercise (type, frequency, repetitions, sets)	Incompetent	37.8	105	53	148
	Neutral	14.0	39	15.1	42
	Competent	48.2	134	31.9	89
	Total mean (max score 7) (95% CI)	4.15 (3.96–4.34)		3.61 (3.45–3.77)
EP Competence (sum of 3 skills3) to Healthy Patients and NCD Total mean (max score 21) (95% CI)		13.35 (12.90–13.80)		11.26 (10.81–11.71)

¹Responses scored on the 7-point Likert scale: 1-highly incompetent, 2-incompetent, 3-somewhat incompetent, 4-neutral, 5-somewhat competent, 6-competent, 7-highly competent;

²Categories from the 7-point Likert scale: 1–3=Incompetent, 4= Neutral, 5–7=Competent;

³Sum of competence scores across three skills of exercise prescription: clinical assessment, prescribing aerobic and prescribing strength exercise