The study aims to provide and overview of the psychological outcomes of eCare technologies use for informal carers, since little is known about it. A scoping study was done, which included peer-reviewed articles written in English and included 16 studies published after 2013. Six psychological outcomes were identified (peace of mind, reassurance, anxiety, depression, stress and burden). Of these, the positive outcomes of using eCare technologies on informal carers were mentioned 37 times and the negative outcomes were mentioned only eight times, indicating the prevalent positive outcomes of the use of eCare technologies for informal carers. The outlined interplay between the positive and negative psychological outcomes suggests that the use of eCare technologies in informal care warrants further research, for instance whether the eCare technologies actually fulfil older people and informal carers' needs. The study sheds light on the introduction of integrated technology-based care (ITC) from the perspective of some of the significant psychological outcomes of such technological solutions on home users, which also served as an important theoretical framework for the design of the intervention study plan as well as for preparation of appropriate methodological instruments for the survey monitoring of the study itself within the family practice (primary level healthcare institution).
COBISS.SI-ID: 36081757
Mobile technologies represent a great opportunity to accelerate the integration of older adults into the digital society and at the same time require a high level of digital literacy and skills to be fully usable for end users. Valid measurement scales are needed to study and design effective measures designed to increase the involvement of older adults with smart and mobile technologies to assess user’s abilities. The study deals with validation of the Mobile Device Proficiency Questionnaire (MDPQ) developed by Prof. Dr. Boot (Florida State University), for self-assessment of eight dimensions of skills needed to effectively manage mobile devices (smartphones, smart watches, smartphones, tablets) based on a sample of elderly smart phone users over 60 years of age. Results suggest that modifications may be necessary for the MDPQ to serve as a valid and reliable measure of proficiency among older adult smartphone users. At the same time, the results indicate that the value of MDPQ based assessments successfully predicts participant’s performance results on usability tests, thus confirming the appropriate predictive validity of MDPQ. The research is an important methodological basis for the preparation of the research plan for the intervention study, as it highlights some of the key user experience factors in the use of mobile devices among the older adults in the literature review and results.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36419421
Assistive applications (apps) on smartphones or tablets could contribute to a better quality of life for seniors or chronic patients living independently at home. The Cycle of Technology Acquirement by Independent-Living Seniors (C-TAILS) model was recently proposed for studying the interplay between acceptance factors by integrating the personal, social and technological domains of seniors' daily lives. The presented study aimed to explore how four groups of factors, clustered in accordance with the C-TAILS model, predicts seniors' interest in assistive apps, on a representative sample of Slovenian population aged 55 years or older – 617 respondents, contacted via telephone survey. Three linear regression models were used to analyse the association between the acceptance factors and the interest of the seniors in assistive technologies. Smartphone-related dispositional traits were the strongest predictors across all three models. Among mobile phone usage patterns, smartphone use and the breath of mobile phone features were significant factors, while the significance of seniors' personal characteristics and socio-economic conditions varied across the models. These factors play different roles in the adoption of assistive apps, which should be taken into an account when introducing such apps among seniors, which was the basis for setting a theoretical model for examining the ITC user experience in the intervention study.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36135517