No abstract

Social participation and digital engagement can contribute to health and well-being among older adults. Because of older adults' decline in abilities, coupled with complex technology and its perceived insufficient relevance to daily life, there is a need to create and tailor social opportunities and services that are supported by digital technologies for older adults to continue participating in society. Thus, it becomes relevant to explore older adults' perceptions about contexts surrounding their social participation in a digital society. This exploration used a qualitative research design with focus group interviews and qualitative content analysis. Eighteen older adults, aged 66-81 years, from rural communities in Northern Sweden, participated in this study. The analysis resulted in three categories: experiencing conditions for social participation in a state of flux, perceiving drawbacks of urbanization on social participation, and welcoming digital technology that facilitates daily and community living. These categories were encapsulated in the theme-the juxtaposition of narrowing offline social networks and expanding digital opportunities for social participation. The findings suggested that co-creating usable digitalized services and facilitating satisfactory use of digital technologies could support older adults' social participation through activities that they find relevant in their lives, and subsequently, might enable them to live longer at home.

Background: With the evolution of contemporary occupations mediated by digital technologies (DTs), there is a need for occupational therapists to develop and structure knowledge on how to support older adults' engagement in occupations and social participation in a digitalised society. Objective: The objective of this study is to explore how tailoring to support older adults' engagement in DT-mediated occupations could be schematised. Material and methods: The study employed a multiple case study methodology. There were nine cases, with each case involving an older adult undergoing a collaborative process to support engagement in DT-mediated occupations. The collaborative process was initiated through questionnaires, observations, and dialogues. Meetings and tailoring strategies were documented in fieldnotes and memos on tailoring, respectively. Semi-structured interviews concluded data collection. Cross-case synthesis was used in data analysis. Results: The result is a proposed scheme for tailoring to support older adults' engagement in digital technology-mediated occupations, wherein strategies undertaken in the collaborative processes were synthesised and described. Conclusion and significance: The proposed scheme for tailoring could contribute to occupational therapists' knowledge on how to support older adults' engagement in contemporary occupations. Testing the model in various practice settings is recommended in order to enhance occupational therapy practice.