Association between social participation and life satisfaction in people with physical disabilities

Research Objectives: To investigate the association between social participation and life satisfaction in people with physical disabilities.

Design: Retrospective longitudinal study using a piecewise latent growth model.

Setting: Community setting.

Participants: We extracted demographic and clinical information of 509 people aged 50 or over with a physical disability from the second wave of the Korea Panel Survey of Employment for the Disabled (PSED).

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: The independent variable was social participation, which was measured by a single question, “How much do you think you are participating in various social activities yourself?”. The dependent variable was life satisfaction that asking the overall satisfaction in daily life.

Results: Participants were 271 (42.63%) males and 292 (57.37%) females, and their mean age was 57.47 (SD = 4.40). The piecewise growth model fit met the criteria (χ2 = 8.206, p-value = 0.7688; CFI = 1.00; TLI = 1.00). The mean value of life satisfaction increased from 2016 to 2019, and decreased from 2019 to 2021. After controlling for the time-invariant covariates, social participation was associated with life satisfaction for each year (β ranged from 0.166 to 0.235, all p-value <.000).

Conclusions: Our study indicates that social participation could be a modifiable behavior factor that increases life satisfaction in people with physical disabilities.

Author(s) Disclosures: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.