Aliviar o Stress de indivíduos com incapacidade: o potencial da prática turística

Stress negatively affects modern society’s health conditions, diminishing people’s daily performance and, thus, their quality of life. Disabled persons are probably more exposed to different and more intense stress-inducing circumstances, which cause even more severe instability within these individuals’ mental, psychological, emotional and even physical resources. Evidence shows that leisure involves a sense of freedom and personal development, revealing its potential for stress control, inducing positive emotions, social interaction and coping (Folkman and Moskowitz, 2004). As tourism is recognized to have a long-term positive impact on tourists’ quality of life (Neal et al., 2007), frequently associated with stress-reduction, we decided to study these intrinsic aspects of the tourism activity for persons with  isabilities. This paper aims to clarify stress-inducing circumstances for disabled people and to explain how tourism may act as a stresscoping tool in this population. For this purpose, first a literature review is presented and then results from focus groups discussions, obtained in the context of an exploratory study on disabled individuals’ participation in tourism, analyzed.