Health-Related Quality of Life in Iranian Women with Different Levels of Physical Activity

PURPOSE: One of the most significant current discussions is the effect of different levels of physical activity on health-related quality of life (HRQOL), but there have been no studies in Iran which investigate this issue. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the level of physical activity and HRQOL in Iranian women. METHODS: This was an analytical cross-sectional study conducted from October 2010 to January 2011 in Karaj's gymnasiums. We selected gymnasiums using simple randomized sampling. The validated Persian short form 36-item HRQOL questionnaire version 2.0 (SF-36 v2) and the short form of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire were used for data collection. Based on IPAQ, participants were classified into two groups: one with a high level of physical activity (N=240) and another with a moderate level (N = 120). RESULTS: The group with a high level of physical activity had significantly higher vitality scores (P=0.01) and lower role limitation-physical scores (P=0.02) than the group with a moderate level. The high level of physical activity was associated with considerably higher scores in general health (73.94 ± 0.99 vs.70.82 ± 1.33) (P=0.06) and mental well-being (73.94 ± 1.18 vs.70.88 ± 1.82) (P=0.1) domains than moderate level. CONCLUSIONS: It seems that the high level of physical activity, compared with the moderate level, tends to have positive association with more domains of SF-36 v2.