Canadian Older Adults’ Intention to Use an Electronic Decision Aid for Housing Decisions: Cross-sectional Web-Based Survey

Abstract

Background Older adults with disabilities such as loss of autonomy face the decision of whether to stay at home or move to a health care facility such as a nursing home. Therefore, they may need support for this difficult decision. Objective We assessed the intention of Canadian older adults to use an electronic decision aid (eDA) to make housing decisions and identified the factors that influenced their intention. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study using a web-based survey targeting older adults across 10 Canadian provinces and 3 territories. We included respondents from a web-based panel who were aged ≥65 years, understood English or French, had access to an electronic device with an internet connection, and had made a housing decision over the past few months or were planning to make a decision in the coming year. We based the web-based survey on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). We adapted 17 UTAUT items to measure respondents’ intention to use the eDA for housing decisions, as well as items measuring 4 intention constructs (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions). We also assessed eHealth literacy using both subjective and objective scales. We used descriptive statistics and multivariable linear regression analyses to identify the factors influencing the intention to use the eDA. Results Of the 11,972 invited panelists, 1176 (9.82%) met the eligibility criteria, and 1000 (85.03%) respondents completed the survey. The mean age was 72.5 (SD 5.59) years. Most respondents were male (548/1000, 54.8%), White (906/1000, 90.6%), English speakers (629/1000, 62.9%), and lived in Ontario or Quebec (628/1000, 62.8%) and in urban areas (850/1000, 85%). The mean scores were 27.8 (SD 5.88) out of 40 for subjective eHealth literacy and 3.00 (SD 0.97) out of 5 for objective eHealth literacy. In our sample, the intention score was 4.74 (SD 1.7) out of 7. The mean scores of intention constructs out of 7 were 5.63 (SD 1.28) for facilitating conditions, 4.94 (SD 1.48) for performance expectancy, 5.61 (SD 1.35) for effort expectancy, and 4.76 (SD 1.59) for social influence. In the final model, the factors associated with intention included mother tongue (β=.30; P<.001), objective eHealth literacy (β=–.06; P=.03), performance expectancy (β=.55; P<.001), social influence (β=.37; P<.001), and facilitating conditions (β=.15; P<.001). Conclusions Findings from this pan-Canadian web-based survey on Canadian older adults suggest that their intention to use the eDA to make housing decisions is similar to the findings in other studies using UTAUT. The factors identified as influencing intention were mother tongue, objective eHealth literacy, performance expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. These will guide future strategies for the implementation of the eDA.

Knowledge into Action: Preliminary Results of an Assessment of Clinicians’ Intention to Use Inlow’s 60-second Diabetic Foot Screen

“…While there is no definitive threshold for a clinically significant intention score in the literature, a score ≥ 4 can be considered sufficient to assume that a health-care professional has the potential to use Inlow's 60-second Diabetic Foot Screen. 18 Our findings, although limited by a small sample were consistent with those of other post-CPD activities, except for the score related to beliefs about consequences, where we had a much higher score. 17 This may be due to the fact that Inlow's 60-second Diabetic Foot Screen is a tool primarily developed in Canada, and even if foot screening is not a widespread practice, respondents were very experienced regarding diabetic foot disease.…”