Previously submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research (no longer under consideration since Jul 09, 2021)
Date Submitted: Aug 22, 2019
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Impacts of smart mobile devices use on promoting the mental health of elder adults: A social supports perspective
ABSTRACT
Background:
As China’s population ages, older people’s mental health has become an important social issue. In recent years, the popularity of smart mobile devices (SMDs) (such as smart watches, smartphones, tablets, etc.) means an increasing number of elderly people are using them.
Objective:
We investigated the impacts of SMDs on promoting mental health by developing a research model associated with SMD-use behavior, social support, and the mental health of the elderly.
Methods:
Participants included 478 elderly SMD users, of whom 242 (50.63%) were women and 236 (49.37%) were men. The Social Support Scale, SMD-use Scale, GDS-30 and Tilburg weakness evaluation scale (GFI) were used in data collection. Structural equation modeling (SEM)be used for data analysis
Results:
The influence of intelligent terminal use behavior on enacted offline social support (T=6.903, p= 0.00) is greater than that on enacted online social support (T=2.294, p=0.033). The use behavior of intelligent terminals has the largest impact on perceived social support (T=3.929, p=0.00), followed by enacted offline social support (T=2.848, p=0.004) and enacted online social support (T=2.242, p=0.013). The effects of perceived social support on depression were confirmed (T=6.736, p=0.00). It showed that perceived social support had a significant impact on depression.
Conclusions:
Our study found that the usage of SMD devices could effectively affect older people’s mental health based on social support. The influence of SMD use on social support is mainly on enacted offline social support, which is different from the previous research on young people. Besides, the use of SMD equipment can effectively improve the perceived ability for the elderly.
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