Visually impaired dancers vs other sound input-based sport athletes: survey on psychological well-being and quality of life

Sport practice has the widely demonstrated potential of promoting well-being and physical/ mental health, especially in disabled individuals. Nowadays, visually impaired people can participate in several sports commonly adapted and played substituting visual input with auditory or tactile ones. By integrating movement and music, dance can simultaneously promote physical and emotional involvement and enhances vicarious sense recruitment. On these premises, we performed a survey to assess the psychological well-being (PWB) and quality of life (QoL) in visually impaired athletes, comparing dancesport vs other sound input-based sports. Twenty-one visually impaired dancers and twenty-seven visually impaired athletes practicing adapted baseball, showdown, blind futsal, or blind tennis completed a structured self-report survey including the Italian version of PWB-18 scale and the Short Form-12 (SF-12) questionnaire. Dancers reported signifi cantly higher scores in PWB-18 autonomy, environmental mastery, and self-acceptance along with a higher PWB total score than the other athlete group. Similarly, the SF-12 questionnaire results demonstrated signifi cantly higher scores in both physical and mental QoL of visually impaired dancers compared with other athletes. Those results were further strengthened by the statistically signifi cant data of the applied multiple linear regression model revealing the role of sport-specifi c practice as independent predictor of both PWB and QoL. In conclusion, our fi ndings suggest that, given its peculiarities, the practice of dancesport may have a stronger positive impact on PWB and QoL of visually impaired individuals than other sound input-based sports.