Students’ Perceptions of Islamic Elderly Care Website

Abstract

Senior citizens are those in the age group of 60 years old and above who require attention and close care in reference to aspects such as motivation, accommodation, spirituality, emotional support system and security. At present, the development of websites in relation to senior citizens centers solely on features dealing with facilities, amenities and health. Hence, leaving out the critical spiritual/religious element that operates as lifeline of wellbeing for the elderly that is essential to produce a healthy group of elderly people who are spiritually sound based on religion. On this account, the study is dedicated to identify content and evaluate Muslim elderly care website from the perception of students. The case study began by identifying the selected Muslim elderly care website's content, followed by an online questionnaire by means of Google Forms to 60 respondents of Sunnah and Information Management Program students from Islamic Science University of Malaysia (USIM). Descriptive analysis was utilized for the data analysis process assisted by version 26 of IBM SPSS. The study's findings found that the website under observation has created five main menu sites namely: (i) Home, (ii) Definition, (iii) Islamic perspective, (iv) Abuse of the elderly and (v) Suggestion. Feedback gained have revealed that this platform has proven to be highly beneficial and suitable for the community as well as able to increase public awareness and understanding of elderly care from an Islamic perspective. Nevertheless, the website is lacking features like video and audio to draw users' interest to face the challenges of caring for the elderly in today's digital age; hence, stands in need of enhancement.