Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Aging
Date Submitted: Apr 8, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 8, 2022 - Jun 3, 2022
Date Accepted: Dec 25, 2022
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jan 4, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Digital Ties for Older Adults during Visitation Restrictions in Long-term Care Facilities: A Systematic Scoping Review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Digital technologies were implemented to address long-term care facility residents’ disrupted socialization needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. A literature review regarding this topic is needed to inform public policy, facility’s managers, family caregivers, and nurses/allies health professionals involved in mediating the use of digital devices for resident’s social ties.
Objective:
Our study outlines key concepts, methodologies, results, issues, and gaps in articles published during pandemic-related visitation restrictions.
Methods:
Following the PRISMA-ScR protocol, we conducted a systematic scoping review of articles published in peer-reviewed journals from early 2020 to end of June 2021, when the most stringent restrictions were in place. Among 763 screened articles, 29 met our selection criteria.
Results:
The results address three main aspects: the impact and expectations of digital technologies on health and quality of life, people involved in the exchanges, and limitations preventing significant contact. The findings highlight the plurality of ties to consider, show the need to support both face-to-face and remote contact, evaluate their complementarity, and outline emerging avenues to enable meaningful remote social ties.
Conclusions:
To go beyond the digital solutionism risk, future research and public policies should consider the holistic impact on health regarding the implementation of digital technologies, including the meaning residents give to interpersonal exchanges and the organizational constraints.
Citation
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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.