Use of photo diary and focus group to explore needs for digital disease management program among community older adults with chronic disease

Abstract

The world's ageing population is in rapid growth. The rate of the population aged 65 and over is increasing faster than all other age groups globally. According to the World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights, one in 11 people in the world were over age 65 (9%) in 2019. By 2050, the number of persons aged 65 years or over is projected to one in six people (16%) (United Nations, 2019). As the population aged, the prevalence of chronic conditions also increased.Approximately 80% of older adults have at least one chronic disease and 77% have at least two (National Council on Aging, 2018).It is believed that chronic diseases are common debilitating which are the main causes of poor health, disability and premature death (General Bauer et al., 2014). Cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and type 2 diabetes are four of the most prominent chronic diseases (World Health Organization, 2014).One study in Taiwan also showed that the coexistence of two or more chronic conditions has become widely prevalent, with the hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus as the most common diseases across all older populations which could lead to disability

Study on the Types of Elderly Intelligent Health Management Technology and the Influencing Factors of Its Adoption

“…Users are interested in core functions such as speed of running, reminders, notifications, encouragement, follow-up, goal setting, and online video presentation, and in the way they are provided [31,34,[64][65][66] Quality of information Information quality has a significant impact on older people's acceptance of intelligent health management technologies [22,67] Personalization Personalization is a key characteristic that enhances the attractiveness and acceptability of IHMT [35,41,[68][69][70][71] Interactivity Interactive games and healthcare worker or peer interactions can increase interest in older adults [5,17,26,27,45,58,62,[70][71][72] Perceived ease of use User interface design Devices with simple operation, large font, and touch screen interface are more popular [23,26,42,46,48,68,73,74] Efficiency Voice input design can improve time efficiency [75] Security…”

“…Nevertheless, the time and frequency of reminders need to be well designed, or the elderly will only ignore them. For instance, in the study by Kuo et al of taking medication and confirming the dosage, the researchers announced each prescription via the push notification service, and the application finally prompted the elderly to take their medicine [65]. Motivating mechanisms, such as comparison with other users' behavioral data, are also considered to promote users' usage.…”

“…In addition, the information quality provided by IHMT also affects the elderly experience [65]. When poor-quality information repeatedly appears, the elderly are more likely to give up using it.…”