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Older service users’ experiences of learning to use eHealth applications in sparsely populated healthcare settings in Northern Sweden and Finland
Faculty of Education, Media Education Hub, University of Lapland..ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3646-4838
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Social Work.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0427-7248
Faculty of Education, Media Education Hub, University of Lapland..ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4221-6980
2021 (English)In: Educational gerontology, ISSN 0360-1277, E-ISSN 1521-0472, Vol. 47, no 1, p. 25-35Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This research seeks to better understand how older people living in sparsely populated areas learn and then use eHealth applications in their everyday lives. The study was conducted in northern Sweden and Lapland in northern Finland, the most sparsely populated areas in these countries. The study focused on the use of following eHealth services: a medication-dispensing service, a virtual health room and a self-monitoring system. Research data were collected through semi-structured interviews and observations. The study included 19 participants, aged from 63 to 89 years. The following research questions guided the study: In what ways was the respondents’ learning and use of the eHealth service a social practice? How are such practices affected by cultural identities? The results show that digital self-care technologies can be very user friendly, easy to use, and sometimes, require very little learning effort from older users. However, the results also show that engaging in eHealth and learning how to use digital self-help services requires constant learning of different competences, not just digital but also competences that are medical and administrative. In addition, the use of eHealth required support from the respondents’ children, grandchildren, neighbors, and friends. Therefore, the digital self-care technologies contributed to a broader redistribution of responsibility from individual users and health and social care to informal support networks surrounding the respondents. Finally, the results indicated that respondents’ motives for learning and using the digital services often expressed cultural identities that affected such conceptions.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Milton Park: Taylor & Francis, 2021. Vol. 47, no 1, p. 25-35
National Category
Other Social Sciences
Research subject
Social Medicine; digital humanities
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-177214DOI: 10.1080/03601277.2020.1851861ISI: 000592040200001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85096579359OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-177214DiVA, id: diva2:1506093
Part of project
HARVEST: eHealth and Ageing in Rural Areas: Transforming Everyday Life, Digital Competences, and Technology, Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and WelfareDigital landscapes of care: The digitalisation of Swedish health care and its significance for older patients in rural areas, Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare
Funder
Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, 2017-02304EU, Horizon 2020, 643850Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, 2017-00666Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, 2013-2056Available from: 2020-12-02 Created: 2020-12-02 Last updated: 2023-03-24Bibliographically approved

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Lindberg, Jens

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