Journal article
It takes a ‘spark’. Exploring parent perception of long-term sports participation after a practitioner-led, peer-group sports intervention for ambulant, school-aged children with cerebral palsy
JSAMS Plus, Vol.5, pp.1-10
2025
PMID: 41889488
Abstract
Background
Participation in sport improves health and wellbeing, however children with disabilities participate in less physical activity than their peers. Interventions provided by health professionals in real-world sports contexts (i.e., in groups at sports facilities) have been shown to be effective in the short-term, however, long-term effects have not been investigated.
Aims
To explore parents’ perceptions of long-term sports participation after a practitioner-led, peer-group sports intervention (Sports Stars) for ambulant, school-aged children with cerebral palsy.
Methods
Parents of children who attended Sports Stars two to three years earlier participated in interviews exploring intervention experience and ongoing sports participation. Children's pre-intervention sports activity and participation goals were reassessed with the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM).
Results
Fourteen parents participated. All reported that Sports Stars was an effective intervention, with children's increased confidence reported as the most beneficial outcome. Since attending Sports Stars, children participated in a variety of sports, the most common being swimming and soccer. Most parents reported environmental factors as a barrier to ongoing sports participation.
Statistically significant improvements in children's relevant sports-focussed activity and participation goals were demonstrated compared to pre-Sports Stars (COPM activity performance mean improvement (MI) = 3.94, p = 0.004, participation performance MI = 4.88, p < 0.001). When compared to post-Sports Stars, children maintained, or further improved, ratings of performance and satisfaction at 2–3 years follow-up.
Conclusions
Parents of ambulant children who participated in a short term, practitioner-led, peer-group sports intervention perceived that Sports Stars was the catalyst for subsequent changes to their children's long-term sports participation.
Trial registration
ACTRN12617000313336.
Details
- Title
- It takes a ‘spark’. Exploring parent perception of long-term sports participation after a practitioner-led, peer-group sports intervention for ambulant, school-aged children with cerebral palsy
- Authors
- Georgina Clutterbuck (Corresponding Author) - The University of QueenslandMikaila Gent - Western Sydney UniversityDaniel Thomson - Western Sydney University
- Publication details
- JSAMS Plus, Vol.5, pp.1-10
- Publisher
- Elsevier Ltd
- Date published
- 2025
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jsampl.2025.100087
- ISSN
- 2772-6967
- PMID
- 41889488
- Copyright note
- © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Sports Medicine Australia. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
- Grant note
- We acklowledge funding received by CPL from the Queensland Government's Gambling Community Benefit Fund which allowed participants to complete the Sports Stars program in 2016-2018.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Health - Physiotherapy
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991266195002621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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