Original article
Leisure Time Physical Activity in a Population-Based Sample of People With Spinal Cord Injury Part I: Demographic and Injury-Related Correlates

Presented in part as a poster presentation to Toronto Rehab, November 9, 2008, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2009.12.027Get rights and content

Abstract

Martin Ginis KA, Latimer AE, Arbour-Nicitopoulos KP, Buchholz AC, Bray SR, Craven BC, Hayes KC, Hicks AL, McColl M, Potter PJ, Smith K, Wolfe DL. Leisure time physical activity in a population-based sample of people with spinal cord injury part I: demographic and injury-related correlates.

Objectives

To estimate the number of minutes a day of leisure time physical activity (LTPA) performed by people with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) and to identify the demographic and injury-related characteristics associated with LTPA in a population-based sample of people with chronic SCI.

Design

Cross-sectional telephone survey.

Setting

General community.

Participants

Men and women with SCI (N=695).

Interventions

Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures

The number of minutes/day of LTPA performed at a mild intensity or greater.

Results

Respondents reported mean minutes ± SD of 27.14±49.36 of LTPA/d; however, 50% reported no LTPA whatsoever. In a multiple regression analysis, sex, age, years postinjury, injury severity, and primary mode of mobility each emerged as a unique predictor of LTPA. Multiple correspondence analysis indicated that being a man over the age of 34 years and greater than 11 years postinjury was associated with inactivity, while being a manual wheelchair user and having motor complete paraplegia were associated with the highest level of daily LTPA.

Conclusions

Daily LTPA levels are generally low in people with SCI. Women, older adults, people with less recent injuries, people with more severe injuries, and users of power wheelchairs and gait aids are general subgroups that may require special attention and resources to overcome unique barriers to LTPA. Specific subgroups may also require targeted interventions.

Section snippets

Methods

Participants were 695 men and women enrolled in SHAPE-SCI.17 SHAPE-SCI is a multicenter, prospective study of LTPA and health in people with traumatic SCI. Sample size was based on the goal of accurately measuring self-reported LTPA within 5min/d. Sample size was estimated using preliminary LTPA data derived from 102 men and women with SCI.16 These data were applied to the formulan=[2(s2pooled)/y] where s2 pooled is the pooled variance across lesion levels (paraplegic and tetraplegic) and

Results

The general characteristics of the SHAPE-SCI sample (see table 1) were similar to those estimated for the Canadian SCI population with regard to age, sex, injury severity, ethnicity, primary mode of mobility, and highest level of education completed and similar to estimates for the Ontario (provincial) SCI population regarding cause of injury.23 Respondents reported a mean ± SD of 27.14±49.36 minutes of LTPA a day; 50.1% of participants reported no LTPA whatsoever.

The regression model was

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to examine LTPA and its demographic and injury-related correlates among a representative sample of people living with SCI. Fifty percent of respondents reported no LTPA whatsoever. By comparison, only 12% of able-bodied Canadians report no LTPA.24 Participants reported an average of 27.14min/d of LTPA of a mild intensity or greater. This is 45% less LTPA than reported by a sample of healthy persons with paraplegia who were characterized as being minimally active

Conclusions

Our study has provided a baseline measure of LTPA participation that can be used to gauge the effectiveness of future activity-enhancing interventions. This is an important first step toward improving LTPA participation in the SCI population. A second step is to identify the types of LTPA performed by active individuals with SCI so that interventions can be geared toward enhancing participation in these activities. We address this issue in part 2 of our report. Half of our sample reported no

Acknowledgments

We thank Richard Goy for his assistance with the data analysis.

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    Supported by an Operating Grant and New Investigator Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (grant no. MOP 57778).

    No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit on the authors or on any organization with which the authors are associated.

    Reprints are not available from the author.

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