Abstract
Physical activity (PA) of adolescents with long term illnesses or disabilities (LTID) in general education is examined to provide evidence of PA levels from specific population groups. This study describes the PA levels of adolescents with LTID based on recommendations of daily 60mins of moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) and vigorous leisure time PA (VPA) of at least two times a week for at least one hour per week. Finnish data from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study was pooled from 2002 and 2010 surveys. 1126 respondents (14.6%) self-reported as having a LTID and details of main categories of LTID were used to examine PA behaviours. Overall, 15.6% of adolescents with LTID reported daily MVPA. In their leisure time, 74.0% of adolescents with LTID had met the VPA recommendation. These figures are lower than other reported literature on PA amongst adolescents. PA of adolescents with LTID in general education can be seen as a complex collection of different categories. Boys were more active than girls. Younger adolescents were more active than older. A closer look into the many domains of LTID demonstrated how various LTID groups differ and share similar PA patterns.
Highlights
Understanding participation of adolescents with long term illnesses or disabilities (LTID) is becoming of interest to researchers informing policy
Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) over seven days between the various categories remained consistent between the two sets of data from 2002 and 2010 (p=.889)
Less than a fifteenth (6.2%) came from the motor difficulties category, and the remaining 10% was composed of the other categories, communications (2.8%), visual (2.6%), epilepsy (1.8%), motor with breathing (2.8%), and breathing with communications
Summary
Understanding participation of adolescents with long term illnesses or disabilities (LTID) is becoming of interest to researchers informing policy. Within Finnish general education schools there are around 18% of children with LTID (Boyce et al, 2009). Once an adolescent has been identified to need special educational services, the first step is to do as much as possible to provide opportunities to participate in general education, through an integrated, partly integrated, or a special class. If this type of participation is not possible, a referral is made to special groups, classes or schools (Finnish National Board of Education, 2012). As a result of this system, the number of special schools is low and similar to the situation in Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium (Saloviita, 2009)
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