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Telehealth and digital developments in society that persons 75 years and older in European countries have been part of: a scoping review

BACKGROUND: Demographic changes are leading to an ageing population in Europe. People are becoming more dependent on digital technologies and health ministries invest increasingly in digitalisation. Societal digital demands impact older people and learning to use new telehealth systems and digital d...

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Autores principales: Raja, Moonika, Bjerkan, Jorunn, Kymre, Ingjerd G., Galvin, Kathleen T., Uhrenfeldt, Lisbeth
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8546957/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34696789
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-07154-0
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author Raja, Moonika
Bjerkan, Jorunn
Kymre, Ingjerd G.
Galvin, Kathleen T.
Uhrenfeldt, Lisbeth
author_facet Raja, Moonika
Bjerkan, Jorunn
Kymre, Ingjerd G.
Galvin, Kathleen T.
Uhrenfeldt, Lisbeth
author_sort Raja, Moonika
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Demographic changes are leading to an ageing population in Europe. People are becoming more dependent on digital technologies and health ministries invest increasingly in digitalisation. Societal digital demands impact older people and learning to use new telehealth systems and digital devices are seen as a means of securing their needs. METHODS: The present study undertakes a scoping review in order to map relevant evidence about telehealth and digital developments in society involving citizens aged 75 and over in European countries. It focuses on their experiences and the main barriers to, and facilitators of, societal digital demands. A framework proposed by Arksey and O`Malley was used to guide the scoping review process. The studies included in the review covered telehealth, digital technology and digital devices, and the context covered participants` own home or surroundings. A comprehensive search on PubMed/MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus, Embase and Open Grey was undertaken. RESULTS: Out of 727 identified citations, 13 sources which met the inclusion criteria (9 original study articles, 2 theses, 1 letter about a product and 1 project report). Few of the studies identified have investigated European citizens 75 years and older separately. The studies included varied in their design, location and focus. Older people have experienced both telehealth and digital devices making life easier and the opposite. The outstanding facilitator found was that technology should be easy to use, and difficulty in remembering the instructions was seen as an important barrier. Interestingly, both social support and lack of social support were found as facilitators of using new devices. CONCLUSIONS: Telehealth may give a sense of security but learning to use a new device often takes extra effort. Older people were more open to new devices if the possible advantages of the new technology outweighed the effort that would be involved in adopting a new strategy. As technology develops rapidly, and life expectancy in Europe is anticipated to rise continually, there is a need for new and additional research among older European citizens. Future research should cover the technical solutions most relevant to older people today, social support and participants` access to the devices.
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spelling pubmed-85469572021-10-26 Telehealth and digital developments in society that persons 75 years and older in European countries have been part of: a scoping review Raja, Moonika Bjerkan, Jorunn Kymre, Ingjerd G. Galvin, Kathleen T. Uhrenfeldt, Lisbeth BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Demographic changes are leading to an ageing population in Europe. People are becoming more dependent on digital technologies and health ministries invest increasingly in digitalisation. Societal digital demands impact older people and learning to use new telehealth systems and digital devices are seen as a means of securing their needs. METHODS: The present study undertakes a scoping review in order to map relevant evidence about telehealth and digital developments in society involving citizens aged 75 and over in European countries. It focuses on their experiences and the main barriers to, and facilitators of, societal digital demands. A framework proposed by Arksey and O`Malley was used to guide the scoping review process. The studies included in the review covered telehealth, digital technology and digital devices, and the context covered participants` own home or surroundings. A comprehensive search on PubMed/MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus, Embase and Open Grey was undertaken. RESULTS: Out of 727 identified citations, 13 sources which met the inclusion criteria (9 original study articles, 2 theses, 1 letter about a product and 1 project report). Few of the studies identified have investigated European citizens 75 years and older separately. The studies included varied in their design, location and focus. Older people have experienced both telehealth and digital devices making life easier and the opposite. The outstanding facilitator found was that technology should be easy to use, and difficulty in remembering the instructions was seen as an important barrier. Interestingly, both social support and lack of social support were found as facilitators of using new devices. CONCLUSIONS: Telehealth may give a sense of security but learning to use a new device often takes extra effort. Older people were more open to new devices if the possible advantages of the new technology outweighed the effort that would be involved in adopting a new strategy. As technology develops rapidly, and life expectancy in Europe is anticipated to rise continually, there is a need for new and additional research among older European citizens. Future research should cover the technical solutions most relevant to older people today, social support and participants` access to the devices. BioMed Central 2021-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8546957/ /pubmed/34696789 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-07154-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Raja, Moonika
Bjerkan, Jorunn
Kymre, Ingjerd G.
Galvin, Kathleen T.
Uhrenfeldt, Lisbeth
Telehealth and digital developments in society that persons 75 years and older in European countries have been part of: a scoping review
title Telehealth and digital developments in society that persons 75 years and older in European countries have been part of: a scoping review
title_full Telehealth and digital developments in society that persons 75 years and older in European countries have been part of: a scoping review
title_fullStr Telehealth and digital developments in society that persons 75 years and older in European countries have been part of: a scoping review
title_full_unstemmed Telehealth and digital developments in society that persons 75 years and older in European countries have been part of: a scoping review
title_short Telehealth and digital developments in society that persons 75 years and older in European countries have been part of: a scoping review
title_sort telehealth and digital developments in society that persons 75 years and older in european countries have been part of: a scoping review
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8546957/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34696789
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-07154-0
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