Identifying and investigating the drivers of Iranian women's physical activity

Identifying and intelligently influencing the drivers of women's physical-activity is one of the requirements of the country's sports-cultural directors. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to identify, categorize and survey the trend of changes in the most important drivers of Iranian-women for physical-activity at different stages of their lives. The research method was Grounded Theory, systematic approach. Sampling was theoretical. Data analysis was performed through continuous "questioning" and "comparison". In-order-to achieve saturation while reviewing specialized texts, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 136 Iranian-women aged 7-78 who were regularly participate in physical-activity in addition to 17 mothers and 6 fathers. The findings indicate that there are four general categories of driving physical-activity for Iranian-women at different-stages-of-life, which are: promoters, personal-motivations, individual-characteristics, and health-challenges. Of course, each of these categories has many important subcategories and concepts. Importantly, the findings showed that although the drivers of Iranian-women's physical-activity are nominally similar at different stages of their lives, they are very different in terms of priority and intensity of impact. According to the findings, the effectiveness of women's physical-activity promoters in adolescence, youth and middle-age is far from the desired situation and the country's cultural-sports managers should seek to increase the impact of various promoters on the physical-activity of Iranian-women in these stages. Also, stimulating the identified personal-motivations in different-stages-of-life in those women of the society who do not have serious and continuous physical-activity is another necessary measure to develop the physical-activity of Iranian-women in different-stages of their lives.