Barriers to and Strategies for Promoting Exercise Behavior in Overweight and Obese Pregnant Women: A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis

Aim This study will use the JBI meta-aggregative approach to systematically search for and synthesize qualitative evidence, from Chinese and international sources, on the difficulties overweight and obese pregnant women encounter in adopting and sustaining exercise, the strategies they use to cope with these barriers, and the support they need. RQ1. What are the difficulties? What difficulties do overweight and obese pregnant women encounter when initiating, engaging in, and maintaining exercise during pregnancy? RQ2. Why do these difficulties arise? In individual-level exercise decision-making, which features of cognitive judgment and behavioral choice can be explained by decision-bias theory? RQ3. How can exercise behavior be promoted? What barrier-coping experiences and support needs have been reported in existing studies, and what implications do these findings hold for future exercise-promotion strategies?