Abstract
Objective: It is crucial to understand long-term leisure time physical activity (LTPA) patterns of persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) as the challenges of living with this disability heavily influence LTPA levels. The purpose of this study was to explore emerging LTPA patterns in a sample of persons with SCI over an 18-month period. In addition, the study aimed to investigate the influence of pressure ulcers, demographic variables, and theory of planned behaviour (TPB) constructs on the emerging LTPA trajectories. Methods: Participants (N = 541) were enrolled in the SHAPE-SCI study and responded to questionnaires assessing LTPA, TPB constructs and demographic variables. Latent Class Growth Modeling was used to detect emerging LTPA patterns and to test the influence of potential predictors. Results: Four LTPA patterns emerged: inactive, increaser, decreaser and stable active, representing 22%, 14%, 32% and 32% of the sample respectively. The presence of pressure ulcers resulted in a decline in LTPA among participants with a stable active trajectory. Finally, LTPA intentions were higher in all patterns compared to the inactive group. Injury severity, age and years post-injury also were related to the trajectories. Conclusion: Interventions should focus on increasing individuals' intentions and should be directed towards people who are older, have more severe injuries and have been injured for longer.Acknowledgments: We would like to acknowledge the SHAPE-SCI Research Group. Research support was obtained from an Operating Grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (grant no. MOP 57778).