To feel safe in everyday life at home – a study of older adults after home modifications

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore aspects contributing to experiences of safety in everyday life for older adults who have received modification services. Qualitative interviews were conducted with eight people. Data were analysed using a comparative approach. Three main categories emanated in the analysis: prerequisites that enable a feeling of safety, strategies that enable safety in everyday life, and use of and reliance on technology impacts on safety. The findings revealed that to feel safe in everyday life was based on three prerequisites: feeling healthy, having someone to rely on and feeling at home. The fulfilment of these prerequisites further impacted on the participants' strategies for handling problems in everyday life but also on the ability to use and benefit from technology such as home modifications. In conclusion, the findings indicated that interventions provided to increase safety for older adults should primarily be focused on the presence and fulfilment of prerequisites and later on other interventions such as technology. Technology such as home modifications and assistive devices was not found in this study to facilitate the feeling of safety unless supported by the fulfilled prerequisites. Implications of these findings for clinical practice are discussed.

Cohabitants’ perspective on housing adaptations: a piece of the puzzle

“…The findings show that the cohabitants' hopes and expectations of the HA above all concern the partner's mobility, safety and independence in activities of everyday life in and around the home. This is in line with the aims of the intervention to promote safe and independent living for people with disabilities in ordinary housing (8) and in line with previous research on how HAs are evaluated and perceived by the applicant (17,19,30).…”

“…This is in line with the aims of the intervention to promote safe and independent living for people with disabilities in ordinary housing [8], and in line with previous research on how HAs are evaluated and perceived by the applicant [17,19,31,32].…”

“…While some studies have explored the applicants' experiences of HAs (19) and home modifications (6,7), studies with an explicit focus on the cohabitants' or caregivers' expectations and experiences of sharing home where HAs have been made are lacking. Considering that the informal caregiver is, to a large extent, the spouse of the person in need of care, this knowledge is important when designing a person-centred HA intervention, which also might facilitate caregiving tasks.…”

An exploration of factors associated with older persons’ perceptions of the benefits of and satisfaction with a preventive home visit service

“…Safety is a basic need related to subjective well‐being . Feeling safe is important to older people and Scandinavian qualitative studies have found that PHV may improve feeling of safety among users . We found that the majority of the respondents did not need help from PHV related to feelings of safety, but that the importance of PHVs regarding older people's feelings of safety increases with age, which was not reported previously.…”

Immersive Virtual Environment as a Promising Tool for the Elderly-Friendly Assistive Robot Design

“…The barriers due to impairments of elders' physical status are cognitive (memory and processing speed, visual, auditory, and motor control abilities [23]). The mental barriers are attitudinal (manner of feeling or behaving; [24,25]) privacy concerns, security [26], safety (monitoring elderly in their private home; [27][28][29][30][31]), and total replacement of humans with technology tools such as robots [32,33]. Also, much of the literature on human factors in HRI has emphasized the importance of perceived safety, usefulness, self-efficacy, learning support, and experience, etc.…”