Examining the relationship between leisure constraints and quality of life: A case of hikers in Ningbo, China

Abstract

The impact of leisure on quality of life (QOL) has garnered increasing scholarly attention from the public health perspective. However, as a key concept within leisure studies, leisure constraint's impact on QOL remained unstudied, especially from the perspective of hiking in non-Western developed countries. Although past qualitative studies indicated that leisure constraints might lead to poorer QOL, empirical evidence is lacking. Thus, to fill in this research gap, we collected 606 useable questionnaires from hikers on the North Hills' Trail in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, China. We empirically examined the relationship between leisure constraint, plus hiker's demographic variables and QOL. The results revealed that: (1) Intrapersonal constraint significantly predicted physical health; Environmental and facilities constraint significantly predicted environmental health; Interpersonal constraint significantly predicted all QOL dimensions (e.g., psychological health, environmental health, social relationship health, and physical health); Accessibility constraint significantly predicted psychological health; Time constraint significantly predicted social relationships health; (2) Among demographic variables, income significantly predicted psychological health, environmental health, social relationships health, and physical health. Both age and number of children are significant predictors of physical health. We offered new insight into hikers' constraint factors from the perspective of non-Western developed countries, provided empirical evidence to fill the research gap about leisure constraint and QOL, and further enriched existing research about leisure, QOL and hiking.