A Comparative Study of the Comparison of Quality of Life and Life Satisfaction, Self-esteem and Social Development between Disabled Athletes and Non-athletes with Disabilities

The aim of this study was to compare the quality of life and life satisfaction, self-esteem and social development of disabled athletes and non-athletes with disabilities. Regular physical activity and exercise are of great importance for health and functioning of people with disabilities.
This is a Causal-comparative study. Convenience sampling was used to recruit the participants. The participants were selected from among disabled athletes and non-athletes with disabilities. Research Instruments were a version of S. Coopersmith's (1967) Self-Esteem Inventory, and Wahtsman Social Development questionnaire and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al., 1985). T-test for independent groups and multivariate analysis of variance were used to analyze the data.
The results showed a significant difference between athletes and non-athletes with disabilities in terms of quality of life and life satisfaction, self-esteem and social development, (0.001), (0.002), (0.001), (0.001). In other words, quality of life and life satisfaction, self-esteem and social development of disabled athletes is higher than non-athletes with disabilities. From Among the variables quality of life, self-esteem, social development, the variable vitality, general self-esteem and responsibility had the highest scores in comparison to other types.
Sports and physical activity can enhance self-esteem, social development, quality of life and life satisfaction among disabled athletes.