The Relationship between Basketball Player’s Self-Assessed Health and Specialization

[[abstract]]There are lots of evidences to prove that exercises can improve people’s health. However, different exercises can maintain different physical health and require different skills. The characteristics of basketball are jumping, and suddenly running or suddenly stopping. The important physical health indexes include muscular strength, velocity and power of upper extremity, cardiovascular fitness, and so on. Basketball is a kind of middle intensity exercise. Because of convenience, cheapness and accessibility, to play basketball becomes popular to people. There were few researches to use Short Form 36 (SF-36) Health Survey as a tool to study basketball. The objectives of this research were to realize the relationships between the specialization of basketball participants and their self-assessed health by SF-36. Seven hundred seventy people were selected in this cross-sectional, descriptive study by using a structured questionnaire. Four hundred and forty-three valid data were used to analyze as the results, the valid corresponding rate was 73.8%. The surveys were conducted during the period of March to April 2010. The results of this study were the followings: 1. Most surveyed basketball players were assessed as the new level of specializations; the percentage was 36.3%; 35.3%, 22.8% and 5.6% of the surveyed ones were graded as the primary level, middle level, and the highest level of specialization, separately. 2. The relationships between genders and ages of basketball players and their self-assessed health: (1) Different surveyed basketball palyers’ ages had different mental health (MH). (2) Different surveyed male basketball palyers’ ages had different role limitations due to physical health problems (RP), vitality (VT), mental health (MH), and general health (GH). (3) Different surveyed female basketball palyers’ ages ages had different physical functioning (PF). 3. The relationships between the specializations of basketball palyers and the self-assessed health: (1) The higher degree of the surveyed basketball palyers’ specializations, the better conditions of their physical functioning (PF), role limitations due to physical health problems (RP), vitality (VT), mental health (MH), and general health (GH) . (2) The higher degree of the surveyed male basketball palyers’ specializations, the better conditions of their physical functioning (PF), role limitations due to physical health problems (RP), vitality (VT), mental health (MH), and general health (GH) . (3) The higher degree of the surveyed female basketball palyers’ specializations, the better conditions of their physical functioning (PF), and general health (GH) . 4.To maintain good health condition, to improve physical health, and to relax emotion, were the top three graded surveyed basketball palyers’ motivations. 5. No time, and heavy works, and bad basketball skills were the top two graded surveyed basketball palyers’ constraints. According to the results of this study, it is to encourage people to play basketball to improve their health