Factors Influencing Performance of Exercise Behavior of Middle-Aged Men with Chronic Disease Based on the Information–Motivation–Behavioral Skill-Revealed-Related Variables (IMBR) Model

Reviewer 1

Comments and SuggestionsThe manuscript is well-written with strong design and data analysis, with only minor comments for wording clarity:

Thank you very much for your review carefully so that it can be a good paper
As you pointed out, I worked hard to correct it.

Line 32: "among the OECD countries..." Please list words of the acronym

 revised it

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

Line 35: "in health maintenance/enhancement..." Please separate out the word in the slashes for readability, probably should read as maintenance and enhancement. Same for Line 41, 43, 72, 121, 230

separate out the word as follows

Line 35: maintenance and enhancement

Line 41: maintain and improve

Line 43: mental and physical health

Line 72: behavioral change and maintenance

Line 121: cognitive and emotional variables

Line 230: modified

The acronyms IMB and IMBR seem to be used interchangeably in the title and sporadically throughout the document, please choose one use and instead write the other one out, to avoid confusion. 

IMB was deleted, Information-Motivation-Behavioral skill model was written, and IMBR was used as an abbreviation.

Lines 168-169: "The significance of participating in the study should be raised by giving feedbacks on the results afterwards." Incomplete sentence or is grammatically incorrect, please check.

Changed the sentence.

In the future, the results will be feedback to the subjects to increase the meaning and significance of participation in the study.

Reviewer 2

This study analyzed the factors influencing performance of exercise behavior of middle-aged men with chronic disease by adding variables through literature based on  IMB model，which is meaningful.

However， in the paper，three are too many problems listed belowed，so please check them.

1.The content of line between 29 and32 is lackng of theoretical referrence

Thank you very much for your careful review. I worked hard to revise what you pointed out.

I added reference number one.
This is on page 9 of Reference 1.

2.The appropriateness of grammar and vocabulary needs improving greatly.

This paper is the result of commissioning to a specialized editing company.

The paper has been modified.
I have received a review of this paper.
Attach a written confirmation.

3.The content of line between 32 and 34 is lackng of theoretical referrence.

I added reference number one.
This is on page 7 of Reference 1.

4.In line 111， the conception of “sport commitment” needs to be added.

Add the definition of Sport commitment in line 112-113.

Sport commitment refers to the optimal psychological state that occurs when you are completely immersed in exercise activities [12].

5.In the proportion of “introduction” ， the hypotheses of sport commitment， perceived benefits of exercise and perceived barriers to exercise lake adequate proof.

Add it in line 117-118

The higher the degree of sport commitment of middle-aged men, the higher the intention to continue participation [5] and the higher the performance of exercise behavior.

Add it in line 125-127

The higher the benefit of exercise and the lower the disability of exercise, the higher the ability to perform exercise [22]. Middle-aged men will recognize the benefit of exercise and the lower the disability of exercise, the better they will perform exercise behavior.

6.The sample caculated by G-power is 179，while this only distributed 179 questionnaires，which did not consider the collection rate of the questionnaire.

The number of people calculated in consideration of the independent variable related to the dependent variable, the statistical processing of regression analysis, and the effective size was 171, and 179 questionnaires were distributed in consideration of the dropout rate of 5%. All of them were collected, but 171 questionnaires were included in the study, except for 8 questionnaires that were not appropriate.
Therefore, 179 people was the number of people who take this into account, whether it is a collection problem or an improperly filled questionnaire.
We ask for your understanding.

In line 158-160, add it.

 Considering the 5% dropout rate, including the number of unavailable questionnaires, such as collection difficulties and unavailable questionnaires,

7、In line 154，what does “154，“they are exercising in daily life based on their ability to communicate.” mean？

Changed it in line 164-165

~~~ exercising in their daily lives, understands the purpose of research and how to collect data, and allowed to participate in the study.

8、In lines between 178 and 179，what does “the researchers made a tool of knowledge 178  about exercise by testing the validity of two exercise experts and a professor focusing on 179 the literature by Kim et al.” mean？

Changed the sentence.

The researchers completed the instrument by referring to the literature of Kim et al. [2] and the contents of information for exercise presented in Song's [25] study. After that, two exercise experts and one professor of physical education checked the validity of the instrument.

9、in line between 197 and198，“In the research by Jin [27], the Cronbach’s ⍺ for the reliability of personal motivation 197 was 0.90 while the reliability of social motivation was 0.90.”，the questionnaire has been revised， so it is not necessary to introduce the reliability of former questionnair. The same problem exists in line 205，218，and 237.

I deleted the previous reliability of all tools and corrected the sentence.

10、In line 214， “This study used the tool modified/complemented by Oh [20]”，Oh？

Revised it

This study used instrument that Oh [20] modified instrument developed by Lee [22] based on instrument by Sebrist et al., [29] and instrument by Stenhardt, Dishman [30].

11、In figure 4， the abbreviation of acronym should be noted.

Revised,

SE=standard error

12、The content in Figure 1 doesn't match the model of hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

Figure 1 and Figure 2 are redrawn to match the hierarchical regression analysis. Thank you.

Figure1: in line 149

Figure2: in line 595

Reviewer 3

This is an important topic given that physical activity and exercise plays an big part in preventing chronic diseases such as obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes. The information motivational behavioral skill model is introduced and extended to add  variables affecting the performance of exercise behavior.

The introduction, methodology, results, analysis and discussion are well presented.

It is recognised that the study population is not representative of all middle aged men as the participants are selected from members of an exercise club.

Thank you very much for understanding the research purpose and effort of the researchers.
The part you commented on was included in the manuscript.
Thank you again.

It will be good to have a follow up study including middle aged men who are not members of exercise clubs. Being a member of an exercise club in itself can be a motivational factor.

Thank you so much.

 Add the sentence

Line 544-545: It is proposed to conduct a follow-up study on middle-aged men who are not members of the sports club.