The relationship between social capital and the way of spending leisure time, based on physical activities

Jahangir Karimian; Taghi Agha Hosseini; Parivash Shekarchizadeh; Sayed Morteza Mousavi Nafchi

doi:10.4103/2277-9531.171793

The relationship between social capital and the way of spending leisure time, based on physical activities

J Educ Health Promot. 2015 Dec 30:4:79. doi: 10.4103/2277-9531.171793. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Jahangir Karimian¹, Taghi Agha Hosseini², Parivash Shekarchizadeh³, Sayed Morteza Mousavi Nafchi⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Management and Planning in Physical Education, School of Management and Medical Information, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
² Department of Educational Administration, School of Educational Management, Farhangian University, Isfahan, Iran.
³ Department of Physiology, School of Management and Medical Information, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
⁴ Department of Physical Educaion, School of Management and Medical Information, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.

Abstract

Background: Today, social capital is a need in the society. Also, leisure time and physical activities are among the most important productive sources of social capital, which have been realized recently. This study aims to find the relationship between social capital and physical leisure time of the faculty members of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences.

Materials and methods: A descriptive correlation method was used in this study. Two questionnaires were used for data collection. Social capital questionnaire is based on SCAT Model. Also, leisure time questionnaire was made by the researcher for which face and content validity was verified by experts. Reliability coefficients by using Cronbach's alpha coefficients were calculated as 0.92 and 0.82, respectively. Sample population was calculated by Cochran's formula, and 150 people were selected as the sample using multiple cluster sampling by taking the sex and college into consideration as the variables.

Findings: According to the findings, there was a direct relationship between a combination of social capital parameters (including commitment, attitude, trust, participation, mutual relationship, social norm, and unity) and the way of spending physical leisure time (R = 0.659, P = 0.000). Among the parameters, "commitment" was significant with a beta coefficient B = 0.293 and P = 0.044 and social norms was significant with a beta coefficient B = 0.196 and P = 0.047, but the rest of the factors were not significant.

Conclusion: Playing sport and doing physical activities in the leisure time and also taking part in group activities and their membership provide a situation for people to respect the group interests through communication. Such activities can cause the level of social capital and its factors to be increased.

Keywords: Leisure time; physical activities; social capital.