The profile of the initiators in a physical education program for elderly and the reasons for the initial adherence

Abstract

In an aging society, Physical Education has paramount importance. Each year the search for supervised programs expends, as in the Elderly Physical Activity Autonomy Program (PAAP) case. Understanding the elderly is important to orientate the pedagogic actions and to attend participants' needs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the social demographic characteristics, previous physical activity, perceived health of the elderly and to understand the reasons for their adherence in the PAAP. Fifty four individuals (14 male and 40 female, 66,45 ± 5,176 years old) that went into PAAP took part in this study. Questionnaires were used with the following variables: type, age, education level, marital status, perceived health, previous professional activity, previous physical activity and social-economic level. To check the reasons for the first adherence, we used the Liekert table and the Liekert Internal Consistence Index. To confirm the results, we applied the Kendall Concordance Coefficient (W) and the Friedman test (Xr²), adopting p = 0.05 as the significance level. The majority of the participants belonged to the A and B socio-economical classes and had a bachelor's degree. The majority had, at least, one disease, but the perceived health was positive. The adherence reasons reported were: learn how to perform physical exercises, to improve physical condition and to prevent health problems. Further, take up free time and to make friends were considered the less important reasons .