Physical activity, self-handicapping and self-esteem levels of the firefighters

The aim of this study was to examine the physical activity self-handicapping and self-esteem levels of firefighters. 767 firefighters in duty in municipalities voluntarily participated in the research. Ethics Committee Approval was obtained from Hitit University Non-Interventional Researches Ethics Committee. Informed consents were signed by the firefighters who voluntarily participated in the study. SPSS 25.0 (IBM, USA) was used for statistical analysis. Normal distirubion of the data was tested by using Q-Q Plot, Shapiro-Wilk and histogram analysis and it was found that the data were not normally distributed. Non-parametric tests were used to test the differences between/among groups and the correlation between variables. The data were collected by using the International Physical Activity Assessment Questionnaire (IPAQ) to determine the physical activity levels of the subjects; the Self-Handicapping Scale which was developed by Jones and Rhodewalt and adapted into Turkish by Akın (2012) to determine self-handicapping levels, and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale which was developed by Rosenberg and the Turkish validity-reliability study conducted by Tukuş (2010) to determine self-esteem levels. As a result of the analysis of the data, it was determined that the firefighter personnel's physical activity level had a positive relationship with self-esteem, and a negative low-level relationship with self-handicapping.