Abstract

INTERDONATO, Giovanna Carla  and  GREGUOL, Márcia. Quality of life and physical activity in adolescents with disabilities. Rev. bras. crescimento desenvolv. hum. [online]. 2011, vol.21, n.2, pp. 282-295. ISSN 0104-1282.

The regular practice of physical activities for people with some kind of disability has been recognized as a powerful tool in order to promote the quality of life. It is, therefore, a new market area, occupying a space which is getting more and more important in both professional fields that emerge from it and the humanizing function that it promotes. Although the term disability can and must be studied in all its complexity, it has been decided in this study to give an emphasis on the aspects related to the characterization of visual and hearing disability considering health and quality of life. The purpose of this study was to analyze the quality of life perceived and the levels of physical activities in teenagers with visual or hearing disability the sample involved. 38 teenagers between 14 and 18 years old participated in the study, 18 with visual disability and 20 with hearing disability, all of them from Londrina. Two instruments were administrated: IPAQ short version to verify the level of physical activities presented by the teenagers and the WHOQOLbref questionnaire to analyze the perception of the quality of life. Considering the statistic analysis, Mann-Whitney test was used for comparisons between the groups and Kruskal-Wallis for comparisons of the four domains of quality of life. It has been adopted a significance level of p< 0.05. In the comparison between the WHOQOL groups and the levels of physical activities, no significant differences were verified in the study. It could have happened due to the fact that all the teenagers in the sample were not sedentary and showed good habits and a healthy lifestyle.

Keywords : quality of life; physical activity; disability.

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