Citation

Vasiliadis A, Evaggelinou C, Avourdiadou S, Grekinis P. Int. J. Spec. Educ. 2010; 25(1): 106-113.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Centre for Human Development and Research)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

An epidemiological study conducted across the country of Greece was conducted in order to determine the profile and the athletic identity of spinal cord injured (SCI) wheelchair basketball athletes who participated to the 13th Greek Wheelchair Basketball Championship and Cup. The Disability Sport Participation questionnaire was used for data collection, which was conducted by Williams. A total of 29 Greek athletes with SCI were participated between November 2007 and May 2008. Twenty-eight men and one woman wheelchair basketball players participated in the study (mean age of 36 years, range 19-56 years). The most common cause of injury was traffic accident (75.9%) then falls (20.7%) and injuries from diving (3.4%). Half of the athletes live alone (51.7%) and sixteen athletes (55.2%) graduated from senior high school. Nearly half of them (n = 14; 48.3%) performed about three training sessions per week. From the results it can be deduced that the spinal cord injured athletes of wheelchair basketball constitute the 31.5% of the total number of athletes. They have a basic level of training hours and days per week, they are not trained in a professional class and as result they did not met the relevant criteria to be in an elite class of athletes. Further research is needed to focus on athletic identity and training patterns of all Paralympics sports in Greece in order to evaluate the growth of its sports separately.

Language: en