Barriers to exercise in African American women with physical disabilities.

Abstract

To examine what factors African American women with one or more physical disabilities perceive as barriers to exercise and how they rank them. Department of Disability and Human Development at a major university. Data were collected through telephone interview using a newly developed instrument (Barriers to Physical Exercise and Disability [B-PED]) that addressed issues related to physical activity and the subjects' disability. Fifty subjects were asked questions about their participation and interest in structured exercise. The four major barriers were cost of the exercise program (84.2%), lack of energy (65.8%), transportation (60.5%), and not knowing where to exercise (57.9%). Barriers commonly reported in nondisabled persons (eg, lack of time, boredom, too lazy) were not observed in our sample. Only 11% of the subjects reported that they were not interested in starting an exercise program. The majority of subjects (81.5%) wanted to join an exercise program but were restricted by the barriers reported. African American women with a physical disability are interested in becoming more active but are limited in doing so because of their inability to overcome several barriers to increased physical activity participation.