Abstract
Bandura's (1986) Social Cognitive Theory was used as a framework to determine if wheelchair-use self-efficacy and exercise barrier self-efficacy would mediate the relationship between wheelchair mobility and leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) in people with spinal cord injury (SCI). Fourty-six people with SCI (76% male, 80.4% paraplegic) participated in this study. Participants completed The Wheelchair Skills Test version 4.1 (WST 4.1; 2008) which measured wheelchair mobility, a modified barrier self-efficacy questionnaire (McAuley & Mihalko, 1998)which measured exercise barrier self-efficacy, the Wheelchair Mobility Confidence Scale (WMCS; Rushton & Miller, 2009) which measured wheelchair-use self-efficacy, and the Physical Activity Recall Assessment for people with SCI (PARA-SCI; Martin Ginis, Latimer, Hicks & Craven, 2005) which measured LTPA. It was hypothesized that (1) there would be a positive relationship between wheelchair mobility and LTPA, and (2) wheelchair-use self-efficacy and exercise barrier self-efficacy would mediate this relationship. Linear regression models showed a positive association between wheelchair mobility and LTPA (? = .29, p < .05). Exercise barrier self-efficacy was a significant partial mediator, explaining 47.7% of the variance in the mobility-LTPA relationship, while wheelchair-use self-efficacy was not. This represents the first study to determine the relationship between wheelchair mobility, self-efficacy, and LTPA in people living with SCI.
