JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Information and communication technology (ICT) based solutions have the potential to support informal caregivers in home care delivery. However, there are many challenges to the deployment of these solutions.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to review literature to explore the challenges of the deployment of ICT based support solutions for informal caregivers and to provide relevant recommendations on how to overcome these challenges.

Methods:

A scoping review methodology was used following the Arksey and O’Malley methodological framework to map the relevant literature. A search was conducted using PubMed, IEEE library and Scopus. Publications screening and scrutiny were conducted following inclusion criteria based on inductive thematic analysis, to gain insight into patterns of challenges rising from deploying ICT based support solutions for informal caregivers. The analysis took place through an iterative process of combining, categorizing, summarizing and comparing information across studies. Through this iterative process, relevant information was identified and coded under emergent broader themes as they pertain to each of the research questions.

Results:

The analysis identified 18 common challenges, using a coding scheme grouping them under four thematic categories: Technology related challenges; Organizational challenges; Socio-economic challenges; and Ethical challenges. These range from specific challenges related to the technological component of the ICT based service such as design and usability of technology, to organizational challenges such as fragmentation of support solutions, to socioeconomic challenges such as funding of technology and sustainability of solutions, to ethical challenges as autonomy and privacy of data. For each identified challenge, a list of recommendations on how to overcome it was created. The recommendations from this study can provide guidance for the deployment of ICT based support solutions for informal caregivers.

Conclusions:

Despite a growing interest in the potential offered by ICT solutions for informal caregiving, diverse and overlapping challenges to their deployment still remain. Designers for ICTs for informal caregivers should follow a participatory design and involve older informal caregivers in the design process as much as possible. A collaboration between designers and academic researchers is also needed, to ensure that ICT solutions are designed with the current empirical evidence in mind. Taking actions to build informal caregivers’ digital skills early in the caregiving process is crucial for optimal use of available ICT solutions. Moreover, the lack of awareness of the potential added-value and trust towards ICT based support solutions requires strategies to raise awareness amongst all stakeholders - including policy makers, healthcare professionals, informal caregivers and care recipients - about all support opportunities offered by ICT. On the macro level, policies to fund ICT solutions that have been shown to be effective at supporting and improving informal caregivers’ health outcomes via subsidies or other incentives should be considered.