JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

People aged 65 and over are more likely to have health problems related to aging, polypharmacy, and low treatment adherence. Moreover, health literacy levels decrease with increasing age.

Objective:

To assess an app’s utility in promoting health literacy in people aged 65 and over.

Methods:

A multidisciplinary team of professionals has developed a simple, intuitive, and video-based app (DigiAdherence) with recipes, nutritional counseling, physical activity, cognitive exercise, motivation to adhere to treatment, falls' prevention, and health literacy content. A total of 25 seniors attending the Personalized Health Care Unit of Portimão or the Family Health Unit of Portas do Arade (ACeS Algarve II - Barlavento, ARS Algarve, Portugal), will be recruited. Subjects must have 65 years of age or more, own a smartphone or tablet, and be willing and consent to participate. Those who do not know how to use or do not have a smartphone/tablet will be excluded. Likewise, people with major cognitive or physical impairment as well as living in a long-term care center will also not be included in this study. Participants will have access to the application for 4 weeks and will be evaluated at 3 different timepoints. Participants will be asked about the app’s utility, expectations (before access to the app), satisfaction (after access to the app), and benefits for their health. Subjects will be assessed in a clinical interview with a semi-structured questionnaire, including questions of users’ experience, satisfaction, app’s utility, quality of life, treatment adherence and lifestyles.

Results:

This study was funded in December 2019 and authorized by the Executive Board of ACeS Algarve II – Barlavento and by the Ethics Committee of NOVA Medical School (June 2020). This protocol was also approved by the Ethics Committee for Health (September 2020) and the Executive Board (December 2020) of the Regional Health Administration (ARS) of the Algarve, IP. Recruitment is expected to start recruiting before mid-2021.

Conclusions:

Since the next generation of elderly is quite digitized, information and communication technologies could potentially be used as a health literacy tool to improve lifestyles among seniors.