Young people with physical disability generally do insufficient physical activity,
leading to high risk of poor health in adulthood. They often desire to be more active
but experience barriers to taking part. In a recent national Delphi consensus, Irish
adolescents with physical disability told us they prioritised acceptance by others,
involvement (not just “being there”, but “being involved”), and improving health and
fitness through suitable activities in their communities.
Physical activity referral schemes are complex multicomponent interventions
involving the coordinated efforts of healthcare and exercise professionals to support
individuals to participate. These schemes have been developed for noncommunicable
diseases and multimorbidity in several countries, including Ireland, but
existing schemes lack specificity to the context and experiences of disabled young
people.
This project aims to co-produce a physical activity referral scheme for young people
with physical disability, and to test its acceptability when implemented in practice.
Using the steps of Intervention Mapping Adapt, we will develop a logic model for
referral schemes. We will work with young people with physical disability, families,
healthcare professionals, and community exercise professionals who support young
people to be active, to adapt the Northern Ireland physical activity referral scheme,
through co-production workshops convened in a world café format. Co-produced
materials will include the referral scheme (“CO-PARtake”), and a process for
evaluating it. We will then implement CO-PARtake as a clinical-community
collaboration, and test it with 20 young people with physical disability aged 13 to 30
years, who will be supported to participate in an activity for three months. We will
collect quantitative data on demand, uptake, and retention, and explore COPARtake’s
acceptability to service users (young people and families) and service
providers (healthcare and community professionals) using qualitative semi-structured
interviews. We will then convene a final world café to agree recommendations for
scaling CO-PARtake.
