Investigation of the relationship between the levels of interest in sports and their quality of life of women participating in yoga exercises

The main purpose of this study is to examine how yoga practices shape women's motivation to engage in sports and their quality of life, as well as the effects on their physical and psychological dimensions in this context. A relational screening model was used in the research. The study group consists of women who participated in yoga courses held in Bartın city center. The first part of the study includes a personal information form, the second part includes the Turkish adaptation of the Quality of Life Scale developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), as adapted by Eser et al. (1999), and the third part is the Sports Interest Level Scale developed by Ceyhun (2017). The data were analyzed using the SPSS 25.0 software package. In the research, normality was tested through kurtosis and skewness values, and it was determined that the data did not follow a normal distribution. The relationship between dependent and independent variables was then examined using the Spearman correlation test. For descriptive data analysis, the Mann-Whitney U test was applied for binary variables, and the Kruskal-Wallis H test was applied for variables with more than two categories. Additionally, frequency and percentage calculations, as well as reliability tests, were performed. The results of the study were evaluated using a significance level of p<0.05. Research findings revealed a significant difference between the age variable and the physical health dimension of quality of life, between the marital status variable and the general health, environment, and total quality of life scores, between work life and the physical health sub-dimension of quality of life and the total quality of life scores, and between previous physical activity and the physical health and environment sub-dimensions of quality of life and the total quality of life scores. A significant difference was found between education level and the total score of interest in sports, between the need for yoga and the total score of interest in sports, and between family encouragement of yoga and the total score of interest in sports (p<0.05). Statistical analyses indicated a significant negative correlation between participants' physical activity levels and their quality of life. This finding supports the hypothesis that reduced physical activity may adversely affect quality of life. Keywords: Interest Levels, Sport, Quality of Life, Yoga.