The accessibility of sports clubs in vilnius for persons with physical disabilities

The aim of research work: To evaluate the accessibility of physical environment and physical activity facilities for the disabled in Vilnius city sports clubs. Tasks of work: 1. To evaluate the adaptation of physical environment facilities for the persons with physical disability in Vilnius city sports clubs. 2. To evaluate the availability of service of physical trainers for the persons with physical disability in Vilnius city sports clubs. 3. To identify the main problem of Vilnius city sports clubs which determines the inaccessibility for the persons with physical disability. Materials and methods: Adaptation of physical environment was evaluated in order to evaluate the accessibility for the disabled of 34 sports clubs in Vilnius from December 2016 to March 2017. The evaluation protocol, according to the technical requirements of construction, was prepared. It consists of 6 fields: adapted track outdoors, adapted track indoors, sanitary quarters, availability, communication of service staff, availability of other services. In order to evaluate the opportunity of physical activity realization survey method was used. 29 questions were divided into 4 groups: 1st group(1-8q.) are carried out in order to find out sociodemographic data, 2nd(14-17, 21q.) was to evaluate the personal experience and skills of the respondents in providing physical activity services for the disabled, 3rd(9-13,18-20,22-24q.) were used to find out the opinions of the respondents about what problems disabled people face when they are in sports clubs, 4th(25-29q.) were used for the respondents to evaluate their own experience, skills, knowledge and personal features. A total of 47 coaches attended the survey, 26(55,3%) of them were men and 21(44,7%) were women. Age of the respondents vary from 23 to 70 years old. Most of the respondents are between 23-30(61,7%) years old. Results: After performing the adaptation of physical environment in Vilnius city sports clubs, the results showed: 55,9% of sports clubs don't have handicap parking spaces,29,4% of the main entrances can't be reached,40% of two floor don't have elevators and also don't have access to the sauna,62,5% of sports clubs don't have rails and special lifting mechanism to the pool,55,9% don't have special toilets for the disabled. No rails(100%), no benches(93,5%) and a lack of free space(67,7%) are the main problems of shower zone. After evaluating the possibilities of physical activity realization for the disabled, the results showed: 91,5% of the respondents have experience of working with disabled people, most of the trainers have good listening(85,1%), personal needs and interest’s recognition and problem solving skills(61,7%). Most respondents gave high evaluation grades to their personal qualities(61,7%) and are ready to service disabled clients(78,7%). 60,6% of trainers gave their competence high or medium evaluation grades. Conclusions: 1. After evaluating physical environment of sports clubs in Vilnius city it was concluded that most of the outdoor tracks are not accessible: car parking spaces, main entrance, track inside: elevator, swimming pool and sauna zones and the sanitary zones which includes toilets and showers that are not adapted for the disabled. 2. After evaluating physical activity realization possibilities, results showed that most of the coaches have good listening, personal needs and interest’s recognition and problem solving skills. Most of the trainers are prepared to service disabled clients and rated their competence with high or medium evaluation grades. 3. After evaluating physical environment and physical activity realization possibilities in accessibility aspect it can be said that the main problem which determines inaccessibility of the sports clubs is that the physical environment is not adapted for the persons with physical disabilities that includes car parking spaces, main entrances, elevators, swimming pools, saunas, toilets and showers