Determination of the relationship between leisure satisfaction and life satisfaction of individuals benefiting from fitness centers for sporty recreational purposes

The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between free time and life satisfaction of individuals who benefit from fitness centers for sportive recreational purposes. The sample of the study consists of 308 individuals, 180 male and 128 female (25.9±8.18 years) residing in Bartın province. In addition to the Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher as the data collection tool in the study, the "Free Time Satisfaction Scale" developed by Beard and Ragheb (1992) and adapted to Turkish by Gökçe and Orhan (2011) was used to evaluate the free time satisfaction of the participants and the "Life Satisfaction Scale" developed by Diener et al. (1985) and adapted to Turkish by Köker (1991) was used to determine the life satisfaction levels. The obtained data were analyzed using the SPSS 23.0 package program. To determine the difference between two groups, t test was applied, and to determine the difference between three or more groups, ANOVA test was applied. While Pearson correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between variables, the margin of error was determined as .05. According to the analysis results; It was observed that there was a positive significant relationship between the life satisfaction scale mean scores and the leisure time satisfaction scale mean scores of all sub-dimensions (p<0.05). As a result of our research, it was seen that the daily participation hours in sports activities in fitness centers did not have a positive effect on the quality of life satisfaction and leisure time satisfaction levels, but the positive effect of weekly regular participation was effective. It is recommended that future research on the concepts of life satisfaction and leisure satisfaction should focus on different sample groups.