Abstract
Individuals with intellectual disability (ID) tend to have a sedentary lifestyle, with low physical fitness and an increased risk of chronic diseases. One reason for the prevalence of a sedentary lifestyle is the existence of barriers to participation in physical activity (PA). The purpose of this systematic review is to update knowledge about the perceived barriers of PA participation in individuals with ID. Electronic searches were carried out in the PubMed, Scopus, SPORTDiscus and Web of Science databases, from September 2020 to May 2021, and included articles published between January 2016 and May 2021. The terms used were: “mental retardation”, “intellectual disability”, “intellectual disabilities”, “physical activity”, “motor activity”, “barriers”, “obstacles”, “embarrassment” and “constraint”, in combination with the Boolean operators “AND” or “OR”. After the methodological process, five studies were included for analysis. These studies revealed the existence of several perceived barriers to regular PA participation, which were grouped into five main groups: personal (6 topics), family (4 topics), social (13 topics), financial (1 topic) and environmental (1 topic). The knowledge and identification of participation barriers can be of extreme importance both to institutions and professionals aiming to enhance the participation of individuals with ID in regular PA programs.
Highlights
Intellectual disability (ID) is characterized by a deficit in intellectual and adaptive functioning in the conceptual, social and practical domain, being identified with deep, severe, moderate and mild degrees, developing before the age of 18 [1].In this population, sedentary lifestyles prevail [2,3], not meeting the World Health Organization physical activity (PA) guidelines [4].Due to their sedentary lifestyles, individuals with intellectual disability (ID) have low levels of physical fitness [5,6,7], with an increased risk of acquiring other comorbidities such as type II diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol and metabolic syndrome [8]
The PICOS strategy [18,19] was defined in order to obtain a final sample of studies that: included participants (P) with ID (Down syndrome—DS included), of any age, gender, ethnicity or race; that intended to identify the effects of the perceived barriers to PA (I) on these individuals’ participation in PA (O)
Considering the applicability of inclusion and exclusion criteria previously defined for this systematic review, and after the complete reading of the articles, a sample of five studies was considered for full analysis
Summary
Intellectual disability (ID) is characterized by a deficit in intellectual and adaptive functioning in the conceptual, social and practical domain, being identified with deep, severe, moderate and mild degrees, developing before the age of 18 [1].In this population, sedentary lifestyles prevail [2,3], not meeting the World Health Organization PA guidelines [4].Due to their sedentary lifestyles, individuals with ID have low levels of physical fitness [5,6,7], with an increased risk of acquiring other comorbidities such as type II diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol and metabolic syndrome [8]. Intellectual disability (ID) is characterized by a deficit in intellectual and adaptive functioning in the conceptual, social and practical domain, being identified with deep, severe, moderate and mild degrees, developing before the age of 18 [1]. In this population, sedentary lifestyles prevail [2,3], not meeting the World Health Organization PA guidelines [4]. One of the reasons found in the literature that can justify the fact that these individuals adopt sedentary lifestyles is the existence of barriers/obstacles/constraints that make the practice of PA difficult [13,14]. According to McGarty and Melville’s study [14], the barriers to PA participation are associated with three main factors: (i) family members, (ii) personal factors and (iii) social factors
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