The impact of the natural environment on the promotion of active living: An integrative systematic review

BMC Public Health

Table 3 Analysis of studies included based on constructs of the theory of planned behaviour

Type of physical activity output	Overall positive effects	Partially or moderately positive effects^a	Mixed or no effects^b	Overall negative effects	Study of underlying mechanism^c
Behavioural beliefs
Psychological states^d	[10, 11, 21, 31, 40, 43, 45–49, 51–55, 57]	[92, 107]	[41, 44, 50]		[21, 31, 48]
Stress relief (psychological)^e	[23, 31, 44, 59, 87]	[10, 27]	[58]		[60]
Stress relief (physiological)^f	[25, 27, 43, 47, 61, 62][42, 43, 55]	[10, 40, 45, 58][54]	[42, 44]		[25]
Instrumental beliefs	[65, 91]	[64]			[31, 63, 89, 91]
Feelings about/interest in nature	[53, 91]				[53, 59, 67, 91]
Normative and control beliefs
Perceived behavioural control/self-efficacy					[31, 32, 56, 69, 88]
Social support	[23, 24, 87, 91]			[59]	[24, 63, 66, 68, 70–73, 88, 111]
Personal barriers					[9, 59, 67, 70–72, 75–82, 88]
Environmental barriers					[3, 9, 23, 24, 31, 50, 58, 63, 64, 66–75, 77, 78, 80, 81, 83–87, 90, 93, 96, 97, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106, 109, 110, 113]
Behavioural intention
Intention to visit NEs or engage in PA	[31]	[67, 102]			[31, 32]
Motives for visiting NEs	[109]				[67, 87, 91]
Likeability/Preference	[40, 44, 50]				[5, 12, 14]
PA behaviours
General PA	[23, 24, 31, 56, 63, 65, 72, 73, 75, 78, 79, 83, 84, 87, 92, 94, 95, 101, 102, 105–110, 112]	[3, 8, 9, 64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 77, 80, 82, 88, 93, 113]	[27, 70, 81, 86, 96–98, 103, 111]	[100]	[31, 104]
NE-based PA	[63, 65, 76, 79, 85, 99, 109]	[64, 66, 69]	[58, 74, 103, 106]		[5, 12, 14, 32, 59, 99]

Theoretical and literature studies are highlighted in bold.
^(a)Significance was of moderate extent (e.g. other factors were more relevant), or achieved for only part of PA outputs or population subgroup.
^(b)The analysis returned no effects or mixed effects, i.e. some positive and some negative, in relation to different study variables or population subgroups.
^(c)The study describes mechanisms underlying the effects of NE on the specific variable.
^(d)Mood, self-esteem, vitalization, positive affect, happiness, and mental health parameters.
^(e)Perceived environment for restoration, self-reported stress.
^(f)Stress hormones, blood pressure, other indicators of allostatic load (e.g. salivary amylase and heart rate variability, and brain-wave activity).

ISSN: 1471-2458