Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Aging
Date Submitted: Feb 14, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: Feb 19, 2019 - Mar 25, 2019
Date Accepted: Apr 13, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
“Call a Teenager… that’s what I do!”: Grandchildren Help Older Adults Use New Technologies
ABSTRACT
Background:
As older adults increasingly show interest in technology for their well-being, families will play an important role in promoting the adoption and use of beneficial health technologies.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to conduct a sub-analysis of data collected from a large-scale qualitative project regarding older adults’ experiences using health information technology. Specifically, the sub-analysis explored older adults’ experiences with technology support from family members to inform strategies for promoting older adult engagement with new health technologies. While the primary analysis of the original study was theoretically driven, this paper reports results from the inductive, open-coding analysis.
Methods:
This is a sub-analysis of a major theme identified from a qualitative study investigating older adults’ use-experience of a widespread health technology, the patient portal. Twenty-four older patients (≥65 years) with multiple chronic conditions (Charlson Comorbidity Index > 2) participated in focus groups conducted at patients’ primary clinic. While conducting the primary theoretically driven analysis, coders also utilized an open-coding approach to ensure important ideas not reflected in the theoretical code-book were captured. Open-coding resulted in a primary theme, “family support”, that was furthered categorized by who and how the tech-support was provided.
Results:
Participants were not specifically asked about family support, yet themes around family assistance and encouragement for technology emerged from every focus group. Participants repeatedly mentioned that they called their grandchildren and adult children if they need help with technology. Participants also reported that family members experienced difficulty when teaching technology use. Family members struggled to explain simple technology tasks and were frustrated by the slow teaching process.
Conclusions:
Family support, specifically via grandchildren, may have a key role in the successful adoption and use of emerging health technologies. While family tech-support seems intuitive, there is very little research exploring this topic. Older adults will be increasingly expected to use health technologies. Providers and health systems should consider potential family support and engagement strategies to foster adoption and use among older patients. Clinical Trial: NA
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.