Investigating the impact of adaptive sports and recreation involvement for Veterans

Abstract:Adaptive sports and recreation programs offer a promising complementary recreationbased treatment option for veterans with service-connected disabilities and health conditions, and these programs can positively impact veterans’ lives. The many biopsychosocial benefits of veteran adaptive sport and recreation participation have been researched, but studies focused on measuring the broader impact of these programs are new. The Experience Type Framework (ETF) and its associated measures, the Experience Impact Scale (EIS) and Experience Type Scale (ETS), offer options for measuring that broader impact. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of adaptive sports and recreation experiences for veterans, explore the characteristics of these experiences for veterans, and contribute to the ongoing validation and development of the measures associated with the ETF. This study utilized a multimethod design, employing quantitative measures in one portion of the study (n = 57) to measure the impact of these experiences and qualitative data collection in the other section of the study (n = 48) to explore the characteristics that contributed to the impact of these experiences for veterans. Findings from the quantitative section revealed that adaptive sports and recreation experiences were overwhelmingly extraordinary (94.8% EIS and 78.9% ETS), with over half of those experiences identified as transformative (50.9% EIS and 59.6% ETS). The qualitative findings were similar, with 95.8% indicating an extraordinary experience and 43.7% of those having a transformative experience. Five categories with 11 embedded themes explored the many aspects of adaptive sports and recreation experiences for veterans that contribute to their impact and confirm the hierarchical structure of the ETF and offer a rich narrative of their experiences.