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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Daily Overview

Session

GR1_1: Abstract presentations: Physical Activity, Exercise and Healthy Ageing: Evidence, Interventions and New Perspectives
Location: Glass room 1
Session Chair: Johan de Jong

Presentation 6

12:13pm - 12:16pm

What characterises the organised sports that older people participate in?

Helena Ericson¹, Mikael Quennerstedt², Susanna Geidne¹

1: School of Health Sciences, Örebro University, Sweden; 2: The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, GIH Stockholm, Sweden

Most studies on ageing, sport, and health focus on understanding the causes of illness rather than on what promotes health. Conversely, this study adopts a health-promoting perspective, viewing sports clubs as settings for health. Research questions: What characterises the organised sports that older people participate in? How do older people want sports to be a health-promoting setting for them?

This study is cross-sectional, adopting a salutogenic approach within the context of sports clubs, focusing older adults who regularly participate. A dataset of 4,837 adults aged 60-96 who participated in various sports was collected via a national survey. The sample comprised over 1000 sports clubs and 50 different sports. The questionnaire SPAHRQ (Salutogenic Physical Activity Health Resources Questionnaire) was used. It contains multiple-choice questions and allows open-ended answers. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The open-ended questions were analysed deductively for each fixed-answer option.

Almost half of the sports activities that older adults participate in are organised as exercise groups for all ages, 46% and 24% are arranged as exercise groups for 60+ only. The majority of are recruited through internal contacts 91%, such as friends, relatives, partners or neighbours. A sports club should be welcoming, inclusive, well-organised and offer a variety of activities.

This study offers recommendations on how sports clubs could organise sports to suit as many people as possible for as long as possible. In sum, inclusiveness has high cohesion and a good atmosphere where it is easy to try and continue but hard to drop out.