Activity Participation Variables Research Articles

Nursing Home Residents Aged over 80-A Cross-Sectional Analysis on Which Activity Traits Correlate to Positive Affect.

Admission to a care facility is assumed to enhance depressive symptoms and dependent behavior in old age. In this context, the relevance of participation in activities that make everyday life in a care facility more pleasant has been pointed out. This study examines if there is a relationship between participation in different activities as well as the frequency of this participation and the positive affect of nursing home residents aged over 80. Data from the unique cross-sectional representative study ‘Quality of life and subjective well-being of the very old in North Rhine-Westphalia’ in Germany (n = 150, aged 90.15 years in average) were used. The data were collected between 08/2017 and 02/2018 using computer-assisted personal interviewing. The variability in and frequency of activity participation functioned as independent, and positive affect as dependent variable. Multiple regression analysis was performed. Residents’ predicted positive affect significantly increased with a higher variability in activity participation. There was no independent effect of frequency in participation. Our findings indicate that there is a significant and positive relationship between participating in a high number of different activities and the overall positive affect of residents aged over 80 years. This does not hold true for the frequency of participation.

An exploratory study examining the relationships between the personal, environmental and activity participation variables and quality of life among young adults with disabilities

Purpose: Despite the apparent importance of International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework in influencing the relationships between participation and quality of life (QoL), limited research has been given to comprehensive modelling of their influence. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between ICF components, participation factors and QoL among young adults with disabilities. Methods: This study tested a theoretically and empirically based explanatory model on 119 young adults with disabilities to examine how the variables of functional impact, financial behaviour, self-efficacy, neighbourhood environment, social support, social and community participation, satisfaction with participation influenced QoL. Analyses were performed with AMOS maximum likelihood parameter estimation. Results: The final model accepted in this study showed a well-fitted model, which explained 65% of the variance in QoL. Results from the statistical modelling indicated that all the ICF components and satisfaction with participation influenced the level of QoL in young adults with disabilities in either a direct or indirect manner. Conclusions: These findings provide evidence that young adults with disabilities have a very complex interaction of their activity participation, social membership, community connectedness, life satisfaction, suggesting that their context of QoL is shaped by how they make sense not only with their functional status, but also the social and community environment. Current findings further demonstrate that the ICF model of functioning and disability should be thought of as multidimensional and more than instrumental in character when being used by health and rehabilitation professionals.Implications for RehabilitationThis study supports the ICF model to include the concept of QoL as the outcome.Rehabilitation practitioners are encouraged to view the ICF model as multidimensional when designing interventions.Social context and support should be included when developing strategies to enhance QoL in youth transition to adulthood.

An exploratory analysis of relationships between socioeconomic, land use, activity participation variables and travel patterns

This paper aims to find relations between the socioeconomic characteristics, activity participation, land use patterns and travel behavior of the residents in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area (SPMA) by using Exploratory Multivariate Data Analysis (EMDA) techniques. The variables influencing travel pattern choices are investigated using: (a) Cluster Analysis (CA), grouping and characterizing the Traffic Zones (TZ), proposing the independent variable called Origin Cluster and, (b) Decision Tree (DT) to find a priori unknown relations among socioeconomic characteristics, land use attributes of the origin TZ and destination choices. The analysis was based on the origin–destination home-interview survey carried out in SPMA in 1997. The DT application revealed the variables of greatest influence on the travel pattern choice. The most important independent variable considered by DT is car ownership, followed by the Use of Transportation “credits” for Transit tariff, and, finally, activity participation variables and Origin Cluster. With these results, it was possible to analyze the influence of a family income, car ownership, position of the individual in the family, use of transportation “credits” for transit tariff (mainly for travel mode sequence choice), activities participation (activity sequence choice) and Origin Cluster (destination/travel distance choice).