Towards an Ontology to Identify Barriers to Physical Activityfor Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is one of the most serious chronic diseases which can be managed by medication and lifestyle changes. Regular physical activity is an example of lifestyle modification that can help in managing and preventing complications of the disease. However, a number of barriers to physical activity of different origin and type (e.g. health, personal, and psychological barriers) can prevent patients from achieving their goals. Various studies have attempted to categories the different barriers, but there is no unified model representing the different barriers and the possible interactions between them and the patient's activities. In this paper, we propose a conceptual model to identify and classify the barriers to physical activity for type 2 diabetes that is intended lay the foundations for the development of an ontology, i.e. a formal model of barriers and their relationships with diseases and patient's activities. The proposed model relies on identifying and classifying the barriers to physical activity according to their signs or factors, and reuses existing formal models of diabetes and other open source specialised resources.