Mobility and life satisfaction among wheelchair users: A study using mobile phone data in Seoul, South Korea

Abstract

This study explored the association between mobilities and life satisfaction among wheelchair users. Mobilities encompass not only spatial mobility but also motility. Offline and online questionnaires were administered, and a mobile phone application was used to gather GPS data. Motility was measured in terms of the perceived mobility environment, and spatial mobility was measured by the daily travel distance, the average number of edges in daily motif patterns, and the number of trips per week. The results show that the perceived mobility environment and the number of edges in daily motif patterns were positively associated with life satisfaction. However, the spatial range of movement and number of trips had no correlation with life satisfaction. These results suggest that social efforts are needed to improve motility as well as mobility and promote social activity among people with mobility disabilities.