JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Ongoing advancements in digital solutions support older adults’ healthy ageing and wellbeing. However, a unified synthesis of sociodemographic, cognitive, attitudinal, emotional, and environmental factors that influence older adults’ intention to use these new digital technologies is still lacking. Understanding the salient factors that influence older adults’ intention to use digital technologies will help to ensure that technology is developed appropriately and contextually. This understanding is also likely to contribute to developing technology acceptance models specifically for the aging generation, by re-organising principles and constructing objectivity criteria for future research studies.

Objective:

Our aim was to identify the key factors associated with older adults’ intention to use digital technologies and to provide a comprehensive conceptual framework to describe the relationships between these key factors and older adults’ intention to use digital technologies.

Methods:

A mapping review was conducted using nine databases from inception to November 2022. Articles were selected for review if they had an evaluative component of older adults’ intention to use digital technologies. Three researchers independently reviewed the articles and extracted the data. Data synthesis was performed via narrative review and quality appraisal was measured using three different tools based on each article’s study design.

Results:

We identified a total of 52 articles investigating older adults’ intention to use digital technologies. The majority (35/52) of articles did not use an existing framework or model for technology acceptance. Studies mostly adopted a quantitative research design (25/52). We found 104 unique factors reported to influence older adults’ intention to use digital technologies. These were categorised into six distinct themes: demographics and health status; emotional awareness and needs; knowledge and perception; motivation; social influencers; and technology functional features.

Conclusions:

Given the importance of global demographic change towards an ageing society, there is surprisingly limited research on the factors that influence older adults’ intention to use digital technologies. Our identification of the key factors across different types of digital technology and models supports the future integration of a comprehensive perspective encompassing environmental, psychological and social determinants for older adults’ intention to use digital technologies.