What are the determinants of older people adopting communicative e-health services? A meta-ethnography

Ayse Aslan, Jo Armes, Freda Mold, Harm Van Marwijk

Keywords: older adults, e-health, digital technology

Background:

Over the years, society has shifted to the online world with Covid-19 highlighting digital inequalities across the population. The largest group of individuals who may experience digital inequalities are older adults. Additionally, older adults are more likely to need medical appointments in comparison to their younger counterparts, therefore, with the increased digitalisation of healthcare, this could impact older adults’ access. Communicative e-health services within this research refers to any service a patient receives or seeks online with them actively interacting with a human/clinician.

Research questions:

What are older adults’ experiences or opinions on communicative e-health services? What are their facilitators and barriers to use them?

Method:

A meta-ethnography was conducted to qualitatively synthesise the literature around older adults and communicative e-health services. A systematic search, with terms relating to ‘older adults’, ‘e-health’, ‘technology’ and ‘communication’, was conducted on six databases. A date range was implemented on the search, with only literature after January 2014 being eligible. The search yielded a total of 10 eligible studies for synthesis.

Results:

The results of the research are currently being finalised. However, despite over half of the papers having participants who had not used communicative e-health services, the findings produced similar interpretations with topics such as support networks, authenticity, difficult interface, convenience, awareness, and physical health commonly spoken about.

Conclusions:

The poster will present the final conclusions at the conference. However, the preliminary findings highlight the potential usefulness of the research and guidance on how we can make communicative e-health services more inclusive to older adults and the wider population such as having the appropriate support and spreading awareness of services available to individuals. Additionally, many older adults struggled with the set-up and usage of the applications and emphasised the need for clear, easy to read instructions.

Points for discussion:

The audiences personal experience with communicative e-health services and whether they are similar with the findings from this research?

Do GPs actively encourage older adults to use e-health services to access healthcare?

How do you promote e-health services to digitally disadvantaged groups?

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