JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Documentation is a critical responsibility for direct support professionals (DSPs) who work with adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but it contributes significantly to their workload. Targeted efforts must be made to mitigate the high DSP turnover rates, poor job satisfaction, and burden of necessary data collection and documentation.

Objective:

The purpose of the current mixed-methods study is to explore how technology could assist DSPs who work with adults with ASD and to prioritize aspects of technology that would be most useful for future development efforts.

Methods:

In the first study, 15 DSPs who work with adults with ASD participated in virtual focus groups. Topics included daily tasks, factors that would influence adoption of technology, and how DSPs would like to interact with technologies to provide information about their clients. Responses were thematically analyzed across focus groups and ranked by salience. In the second study, 153 DSPs across the U.S. rated the usefulness of technology features and data entry methods and provided qualitative responses on their concerns with the use of technology for data collection and documentation. Quantitative responses were ranked based on usefulness across participants and rank order correlations were calculated between different work settings and age groups. Qualitative responses were thematically analyzed.

Results:

In Study 1, participants described difficulties with paper and pencil data collection, noted benefits and concerns about using technology for data collection and documentation, identified benefits and concerns about particular technology features, and specified work-environment factors that impact data collection. In Study 2, participants rated multiple features of technology as useful, with the highest usefulness percentages endorsed for task views (i.e., by shift, client, and DSP), logging completed tasks, and setting reminders for specific tasks. Participants also rated most data entry methods (e.g., typing on a phone or tablet, typing on a keyboard, choosing from options on a touch screen) as useful. Rank order correlations indicated that usefulness of technology features and data entry methods differed across work settings and age groups. Across both studies, DSPs cited some concerns with technology such as confidentiality, reliability and accuracy, complexity and efficiency, and data loss due to technology failure.

Conclusions:

Understanding the challenges faced by DSPs who work with adults with ASD, and their thoughts about using technology to help meet those challenges, represents an essential first step towards developing and/or evaluating technology solutions that can increase DSPs’ effectiveness and job satisfaction. Survey results indicate that technology innovations should consider incorporating multiple features to account for different needs across DSPs, settings, and age groups. Future research should explore barriers to adopting data collection and documentation tools, and elicit input from agency directors, families, and others interested in reviewing data about adults with ASD.