Results of the program of assisted physical activities with animals as a form of sports motivation in people with mental illness

Abstract

This research is based on the application of a sports program based on animal-assisted interventions in a group of users of a day center for people with mental illness. The main objective of this study is focused on analyzing variations in motivations for physical exercise after the end of the program, consisting of a total of 14 one-hour sessions that took place in 2019. The program was applied to a sample of 14 subjects: seven women and seven men aged between 25 and 40 years. The Reason for Participation Questionnaire (PMQ) was passed before the start of the program and after its completion. The data treatment was carried out based on the main descriptive statistical analysis from the SPSS program (Version 15.0). The results indicate that no great differences were found between men and women or age groups for the reasons for sports participation. However, in general, the scores for the items by the users who make up the sample increased in the post-test compared to the pre-test. Consequently, the most relevant thing to highlight after the end of the program is the common assessment with the highest score available for the reason of having fun and feeling good, which was rated as very important.