Identification and ranking of the sport development factors in the Health Branch of Armed Forces

Background and Aim: Promoting physical activity is one of the most important and effective strategies to reduce the risk of some diseases, reduce social deviations, and increase the vitality of communities. The purpose of the present study was to identification and ranking of the sport development factors in the health branch of armed forces. Methods: The statistical population of the study included faculty members, physical education professors, managers, coaches and athletes in armed forces. In the first stage of the research, development factors were identified using interviews with 11 people of statistical population; the sampling method at this stage was purposive and snowballing and continued until the theoretical saturation of the interviews. In the second and third stages, the identified factors in the interview and study background of the study were investigated by Delphi group (n = 13); the sampling method in this phase was purposeful and available; In these two stages, factors with at least 60% positive response remained for the next stage; In the final stage, a researcher-made questionnaire of the five-point Likert spectrum obtained from the previous steps was used to rank the identified factors. The sampling method at this stage was simple random that 384 persons were selected as the statistical sample. A questionnaire was distributed among them and 338 questionnaires were completed. For the rank of factors, Friedman test was used in SPSS software. Results: According to the findings of this study, the most important aspects were infrastructure, partnership development, management, environmental factors and individual factors respectively. Conclusion: Based on the findings, it can be concluded that creating the necessary infrastructure in sports in different sectors is essential for increasing staff participation.