{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,27]],"date-time":"2026-08-27T05:18:19Z","timestamp":1787807899622,"version":"build-2784847793"},"reference-count":39,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,27]],"date-time":"2026-08-27T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1787788800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Deanship of Scientific Research, Vice Presidency for Graduate Studies and Scientific Research, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia","award":["KFU254725"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["KFU254725"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>This study sought to investigate the psychological mechanisms that connect physical activity (PA) to quality of life (QoL) in individuals with physical disabilities (IWPDs). Three hypotheses were tested: (1) self-perceived health and self-perceived fitness mediate distinct indirect associations involving PA, self-perceptions, and QoL; (2) self-esteem moderates the indirect association between PA and QoL through self-perceived fitness; and (3) an integrated model, including PA level, self-perceptions, and self-esteem, explains a significant variance in QoL.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>A cross-sectional study was performed involving 230 individuals with physical disabilities. Measures comprised PA level (Arabic version of the Physical Activity Scale for Individuals with Physical Disabilities), self-perceived fitness and health, self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale), QoL (World Health Organization Quality of Life\u2013Disabilities module), and demographic covariates. Mediation and moderated mediation analyses were conducted using the mediation package in R, employing 1,000 bias-corrected bootstrap resamples. Hypothesis 3 was evaluated through hierarchical regression and structural equation modeling using the lavaan package. All tests were checked for validity and reliability among all participants before analyses.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>\n                      Self-perceived health significantly mediated the relationship between self-perceived fitness and QoL (average causal mediation effect\u202f=\u202f0.123, 95% CI [0.071, 0.179],\n                      <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                      \u202f&amp;lt;\u202f0.001), representing 42.3% of the total effect. Self-perceived fitness served as a partial mediator in the relationship between PA level and QoL (average causal mediation effect\u202f=\u202f0.004, 95% CI [0.002, 0.007],\n                      <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                      \u202f&amp;lt;\u202f0.001). Additionally, this mediation effect was moderated by self-esteem, with the influence increasing from low to high self-esteem groups. In the integrated model, self-perceived health (\n                      <jats:italic>\u03b2<\/jats:italic>\n                      \u202f=\u202f0.431) and fitness (\n                      <jats:italic>\u03b2<\/jats:italic>\n                      \u202f=\u202f0.203) emerged as the only significant predictors: PA level and self-esteem showed small, statistically non-significant direct associations with QoL.\n                    <\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The findings endorse the perceptual pathways model, indicating that cognitive appraisals, specifically self-perceived fitness and self-perceived health, are involved in distinct indirect associations between PA and QoL, with self-esteem serving as a moderating factor. Interventions should focus on improving self-perceptions while also encouraging PA, as subjective evaluations showed stronger statistical associations with QoL than the reported PA level in IWPDs.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1784783","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,27]],"date-time":"2026-08-27T04:27:46Z","timestamp":1787804866000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The mediating role of self-perceived health and fitness in the relationship between physical activity and quality of life among individuals with physical disabilities: the moderating effect of self-esteem"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Majed M.","family":"Alhumaid","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physical Education, College of Education, King Faisal University","place":["Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,27]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"977","DOI":"10.1016\/S0277-9536(98)00411-0","article-title":"The disability paradox: high quality of life against all odds","volume":"48","author":"Albrecht","year":"1999","journal-title":"Soc. 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