Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Aug 28, 2022
Date Accepted: Jan 25, 2023
Injury prevention in mobility assistive products for older adults: A content analysis of online reviews
ABSTRACT
Background:
Older adults who have difficulty moving around are commonly advised to adopt mobility devices to prevent injuries. While online reviews are often used by consumers to assess safety of products, prior studies have not explored consumer-reported injuries and safety concerns in online reviews of mobility devices.
Objective:
This study is set to investigate injuries from the use of mobility assistive devices reported by older adults or their caregivers, to identify types of injuries and product related failures, and to shed light on development of safety, information of the products.
Methods:
An online review dataset about mobility devices was extracted from Amazon.com. We coded 48,886 online reviews across injury types. The team manually verified all instances coded as minor, major, or potential future injury, and established inter-rater reliability.
Results:
Injury pathways, including critical component device failures, unintended device movements, poor uneven surface handling, instability, and trip hazards, were identified for five product types (canes, gait & transfer belts, ramps, walkers & rollators, and wheelchairs & transport chairs). Outcomes were normalized per 10,000 posting (online reviews) counts mentioning minor injury / major injury / injury pathway type, by product category. Overall, 241 per 10,000 reviews described mobility equipment related user injuries, and additional 2,318 reviews revealed potential injuries.
Conclusions:
This study highlights mobility device injury contexts and severity, suggesting that consumers who posted online reviews attribute most serious injuries involving a defective item, rather than user misuse. It implies that many mobility device injuries may be preventable through patient and caregiver education about how to evaluate new and existing equipment for potential for future injuries.
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