Barriers for Wheelchair-User Disabled People to Participate in Leisure Physical Activities in Southeast of Iran

Background & Aims: Physical activity in leisure time can increase life expectancy in disabled people via increasing freshness, communicating with others, and participating in community activities and can prevent withdrawal and malaise. The aim of this research was surveying on barriers for wheelchair-user disabled people in their recreational activities in southeast of Iran. Methods: In functional survey, the statistical population contained all of the wheelchair-user people of southeast provinces of Iran and the sample was 370 that were chosen via stratified random sampling method. A researcher-made questionnaire was used which face and content reliability was confirmed by sport management professors; and the structural reliability confirmatory factor analysis showed its high structural reliability. Cronbach's alpha and correlation coefficients was used to certitude the validity. Research data were analyzed using descriptive, inferential Friedman, repeatedmeasures ANOVA, and Wilks' Lambda tests in SPSS software. Results: There were significant differences between the mean ranks of individual (χ2 = 211.166, P < 0.05) and structural (χ2 = 40.715, P < 0.05) barriers; while there was no significant difference between the mean ranks of cultural-social barriers (χ2 = 1.498, P > 0.05) affecting leisure time physical activities in wheelchairuser disabled. There was significant difference between the means of individual, structural and cultural-social barriers (F= 38.216, P < 0.05). The mean of cultural-social barriers (3.40 ± 0.91) was significantly more than individual (2.96 ± 0.79) and structural (3.06 ± 0.89) barriers. There was no significant difference between personal and structural barriers (P > 0.05). Conclusion: Wheelchair-based people consider more of the constraints to be related to the society, coworkers’ and familiars’ attitudes. Supportive approaches on disabled people would be pervasive in all aspect not limited just in physical and ergonomic structural ones. Physical activity is and inevitable need of life and is more important for disabled people, due their special condition.