Use of a Mobile Device by Nursing Home Residents for Long-term Care Comprehensive Geriatric Self-assessment

Abstract

Long-term-care comprehensive geriatric assessments, such as the Minimum Data Set 3.0, are used to evaluate the clinical, psychological, and personal status of residents in long-term-care nursing facilities. Nursing staff conducts assessment interviews, thereby increasing the workload of nurses and the cost of patient care. This study explored the ability of nursing home residents to use two different mobile devices for a geriatric self-assessment. Study participants were residents of long-term-care nursing homes. A modified Minimum Data Set 3.0 was converted to a format for use with a 6-inch mobile pad and a 3.7-inch mobile smartphone. The survey completion rate and the response time were measured. A Technology Assessment Model questionnaire analyzed the participants' experience. All participants were able to use a 6-inch pad, with an average completion rate of 92.9% and an average time for completion of 21 minutes. Only 20% of the participants could complete the assessment with the 3.7-inch smartphone. The participants found the 6-inch pad easier to use than the 3.7-inch smartphone. This exploratory study suggests that nursing home residents are able to use a mobile device to perform a geriatric self-assessment and delineates the importance of the ergonomics of the device.

Evaluating clinicians’ user experience and acceptability of LearnTB, a smartphone application for tuberculosis in India

“…Furthermore, studies have been largely concentrated in the western hemisphere: Canada, United States of America and Europe (18). Amongst studies evaluating factors influencing mHealth adoption, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been used with different groups of health care professionals, including doctors and nurses, university faculty members, university students, nursing home residents and inpatient diagnostic groups (29)(30)(31)(32)(33).…”

Barriers to and Facilitators of Engagement With Remote Measurement Technology for Managing Health: Systematic Review and Content Analysis of Findings (Preprint)

“…Problems with usability were the most common reasons for dropout form the studies. There is evidence that older adults were harder to engage [19,28,37]. This was partly because some were unfamiliar with using mHealth tools such as smartphone and wearable devices and/or did not feel motivated to learn new skills, but also because the devices were unsuitable in terms of their size to accommodate changing needs (e.g.…”

“…Given that this difference emerged between two groups it is unclear whether this arises from individual preferences or that larger devices led to better engagement. However, in another study that compared within group differences, only 20% of participants (10/51) aged between 50 and 94 years were reported to be capable of using a smartphone, as opposed to a larger smart tablet for data entry and active monitoring, and of these 10 people, only three considered the smaller device easy to use [28]. Lost or damaged device was a clear barrier to usability and participation, mentioned in four studies [8,13,15,26].…”

“…Digital literacy and other practical barriers have been overcome through offering instructions and support from the study co-ordinator [9,28]. Research into the type of support necessary to increase engagement was lacking.…”

“…This study investigated an RMT system for people with psychosis, and was the only study to raise concerns about privacy as the reason for disengagement. Disengagement was, however, raised in relation to other issues such as feeling uncertain about the user benefits, and reliability or accuracy of the data being recorded [15,28].…”