Intrapersonal constraints and facilitators to leisure : issues facing people with physical disabilities

Little research has focussed on factors which relate to the leisure interests of people with disabilities. This study investigated factors which constrain and facilitate the leisure preferences of people with congenital and acquired physical disabilities. Questionnaires were sent to 374 people in New Zealand who had either cerebral palsy or spinal cord injuries, who were between the ages of eighteen and forty five, and who were registered with Workbridge Inc., an employment and job training agency for people with disabilities. Responses to a series of constraint and facilitator statements about preferences within three domains of leisure (passive, outdoor recreation, and sports) indicate that the experience of intrapersonal constraints and facilitators depends on activity type within the passive leisure domain but not within the outdoor recreation and sports domains. Subjects were less likely to report constraints and more likely to recognise facilitators if they liked activities. Subjects who did not have prior experience in an activity were more likely to report constraints and less likely to recognise facilitators. Subjects who had spinal cord injuries were more likely than those who had cerebral palsy to express a concern about other people watching them and report that they would do certain activities because they were unable to do the things they used to. Constraints and facilitators to subjects' most preferred outdoor recreation activities were related to subjects' most preferred sports activities, whereas weaker relationships were found between constraints and facilitators based on passive leisure and outdoor recreation, and in passive leisure and sports activities. For subjects' most preferred and least preferred outdoor recreation activities, constraints and facilitators were related, as were the majority of constraints and facilitators to passive leisure activities. The majority of constraints and facilitators to subjects' most preferred sports activities were not related to sports activities they least preferred