Zhang Yichi, Lee Edmund W J, Teo Wei-Peng
Physical Education and Sports Science Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
Ageing Research Institute for Society and Education, Interdisciplinary Graduate Programme, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
JMIR Aging. 2023 May 4;6:e43709. doi: 10.2196/43709.
Understanding older people's health-seeking behavior (HSB) is crucial for uncovering their health needs and priorities and developing appropriate policies to address them and avert their disease progression. Technologies play an active role in our daily lives and have been incorporated into health activities to support the older population and facilitate their HSB. However, previous studies of HSB have mainly focused on behaviors during illness, and there are limited studies on how technologies have been used in older people's health-seeking activities.
This study aimed to investigate HSB and the associated technology use among the older population, ultimately proposing implications for practice to address their unmet health needs.
This paper presents partial data from a large qualitative study, which has been approved by the institutional review board and used a phenomenological approach. Semistructured interviews were conducted between April 2022 and July 2022, either via Zoom (Zoom Video Communications Inc) or face-to-face sessions. Inclusion criteria were being aged ≥50 years, long-term residence in Singapore, and being able to speak English or Mandarin. The interviews were manually transcribed verbatim, and thematic analysis was performed, with the individual as the unit of analysis to understand the patterns of behaviors.
In total, 15 interviews were conducted to reach thematic saturation. We identified 5 main consequences of HSB, which were aligned with the original HSB model. Regarding technology use in health seeking, 4 themes were extracted: the most widely used digital technologies are the mobile health apps and wearable devices with the associated wellness programs launched by the government and local companies, and they have the potential to enhance health communication, promote health maintenance, and increase access to health services; information communication technologies and social media, though not primarily designed for health purposes, play a substantial role in easing the process of seeking health information and managing symptoms. Although the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in some alterations to older adults' well-being, it has catalyzed the adoption of telehealth as a complement to access health care services, and older adults have different considerations when selecting technologies to facilitate their health seeking and fulfill their health needs. Moreover, 4 archetypes were proposed based on our findings and the insights gained from our participants' observations in their social networks. These findings led to several implications for practice regarding health communication and promotion, health education, technology design and improvement, telemonitoring service implementation, and solutions to address the needs of each proposed archetype.
Unlike the commonly held belief that older adults resist technologies and lack technological proficiency, our findings showed that technologies could play a promising role in facilitating older adults' health seeking. Our findings have implications for the design and implementation of health services and policies.
了解老年人的健康寻求行为对于揭示他们的健康需求和优先事项，以及制定适当政策来满足这些需求并避免疾病进展至关重要。技术在我们的日常生活中发挥着积极作用，并已被纳入健康活动中，以支持老年人群体并促进他们的健康寻求行为。然而，以往关于健康寻求行为的研究主要集中在患病期间的行为，而关于技术如何在老年人的健康寻求活动中得到应用的研究有限。
本研究旨在调查老年人群体中的健康寻求行为及其相关的技术使用情况，最终提出实践建议，以满足他们未被满足的健康需求。
本文呈现了一项大型定性研究的部分数据，该研究已获得机构审查委员会的批准，并采用了现象学方法。在2022年4月至2022年7月期间，通过Zoom（Zoom视频通讯公司）或面对面访谈的方式进行了半结构化访谈。纳入标准为年龄≥50岁、长期居住在新加坡且能够说英语或普通话。访谈内容逐字手动转录，并进行了主题分析，以个体作为分析单位来理解行为模式。
总共进行了15次访谈以达到主题饱和。我们确定了健康寻求行为的5个主要结果，这些结果与原始的健康寻求行为模型一致。关于健康寻求中的技术使用，提取了4个主题：使用最广泛的数字技术是移动健康应用程序和可穿戴设备，以及政府和当地公司推出的相关健康计划，它们有潜力加强健康沟通、促进健康维护并增加获得健康服务的机会；信息通信技术和社交媒体虽然并非主要为健康目的而设计，但在简化寻求健康信息和管理症状的过程中发挥了重要作用。尽管新冠疫情的爆发对老年人的福祉产生了一些改变，但它促使远程医疗作为获得医疗服务的一种补充方式得到采用，并且老年人在选择技术以促进他们的健康寻求和满足他们的健康需求时有着不同的考虑。此外，根据我们的研究结果以及从参与者在其社交网络中的观察所获得的见解，提出了4种原型。这些发现对健康沟通与促进、健康教育、技术设计与改进、远程监测服务实施以及满足每个提出的原型需求的解决方案等实践方面产生了若干启示。
与普遍认为老年人抵制技术且缺乏技术熟练程度的观点不同，我们的研究结果表明，技术在促进老年人的健康寻求方面可以发挥有前景的作用。我们的研究结果对健康服务和政策的设计与实施具有启示意义。
