Payesh
2009; 8: 407-413
Accepted for publication: 14 April 2009
[EPub a head of print-28 September 2009]

Objective(s): This study was designed to investigate the relationship between planned physical activities and quality of life in women reside in the west of Tehran, Iran.
Methods: The Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) was applied to measure quality of life and demographic and other related information were additionally collected. Three parks from western areas in Tehran were randomly selected. A group of volunteer women aged 35-55 years were randomly selected by the researcher in parks and divided into active and non-active groups (walking & not walking). Using SPSS 15, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis statistical tests were performed to analyze data.
Results: In all 148 women were studied and the mean age of women in active and non-active groups were 42.1 (SD=5.7) and 41.7 (SD=5.6) respectively. The results of Mann-Whitney test showed that women in the active group had higher mean scores in all quality of life scales and except two (physical functioning and role-emotional), there were statistical significant differences (P<0.05).
Conclusion: The results confirmed that planned physical activities by walking have been effective on promoting quality of life in women. The results suggest that educational programs would be designed to motivate women having daily physical activity.