Outcomes of the use of different functionalities of telecaresolutions on Slovenian family carers of older

people

Simona Hvalič-TouzeryUniversityof Ljubljana, Facultyof Social Sciences, Centre for Social Informatics

COOP4HEALTHCARE onlineFINAL EVENT, 7.5. 2020,

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The ageing Europe

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/animation-rapidly-aging-western-world/

Eurocarers

The risk of care deficit(Hasson & Dagan-Buzaglo, 2019; Nazio, 2019)

„The needs for long-term care and thus informal care, will increase significantly in the coming decades.“

Informal care in Slovenia

Slovenia is one of the most rapidly ageing European countries (Slovenia Population, 2018)

Informal carers, are the backbone of Slovenian long-term care (LTC), yet the support they receive is scarce (Government Office for Science, 2016)

The Slovenian LTC system is fragmented (Hlebec et al. 2016), and there is no Long-Term Act that addresses LTC holistically (Badnaš & Kajzer, 2018).

Slovenian Active Ageing Strategy recognizes the importance of improving “support for informal carers and their integration into the system of LTC” (Bednaš & Kajzer, 2018, p. 48).

Hvalič Touzery, 2009

Intervention study

Aim:

To identify the positive and negative psychological outcomes of telecare use on the family carers

To review the relationship between psychological outcomes of telecare use with different functionalities of telecare solutions

Psychological outcomes of six telecare features’ use were examined: sensor-based motion detection on the app, notifications and alarms on the app, emergency pendant, smoke detection, call centre service and fall detector.

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Intervention study

Study design and procedure:

A qualitative research design

4 months testing (2018 /2019) of two telecare solutions by olderpeople (OP) and their working family carers (FCs)

Semi-structured interviews (M1, M4) were conducted only with the family carers: a. their caregiving situation, b. their experiences with new technology, c. their use of the tested telecare services, and d. the psychological outcomes of telecare.

Interviews duration: 31 to 91 minutes.

In-depth interviews were audio-recorded and fully transcribed. Personal information was anonymized.

All participants received gift certificates in appreciation of their time.

The study was approved by the Slovenian Commission for Medical Ethics (0120-193/2018/15).

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Intervention study

Apparatus

OP had one of the two sets of tested telecare equipment installed in their home, while their FCs used the telecare mobile app which enabled them to monitor certain activities in the older person’s home and to receive notifications.

Both tested services had motion and door sensors, an emergency pendant, a smoke detector and a mobile app for carers, with alarms in the form of push notifications and activity monitoring.

In addition, the second service, used by 7 out of 22 carers, offered a 24/7 call centre and a fall detection feature.

Participants were not charged for the use of the equipment or service.

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Intervention study

Participants

restrictive eligibility criteria -> purposive sampling was used

26 Dyads: OP and their FCs in the Central Slovenian region

Of the 26 dyads of care receivers and carers, 22 completed the study

FCs characteristics: mean age = 53.9 years (SD = 7.56); most werefemale (n=14), care receiver’s children (n = 20), and two were daughters-in-law; on average provided 8.5 hours of care per week (SD = 12.15) and had been doing so for an average of 5.9 years (SD = 5.87)

OPs characteristics: mean age = 83 years (SD = 6.04); Level of dependency: severely dependent (n = 5), moderately dependent (n = 8) or slightly dependent (n = 9).

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Figure 1. Psychological outcomes of the use of different functionalities of telecaresolutions on Slovenian working family carers of older people (preliminary results)

(Sankey diagram: The width of the lines is shown proportionally to the flow quantity)

Results

Current and future challenges

This study confirmed the potentials of telecare to address challenges related to the provision of LTC for older people by the informal carers and to increase informal carer‘s self-efficacy.

Some of the future challenges:

To convince public authorities on the relevance to recognise the role of informal carers and to provide them with much neededsupport as soon as possible.

To convince policymakers to promote policy frameworks for the creation of telecare services for carers -> deploying telecareservices to support informal carers.

To provide affordable and acccesible telecare services to informalcarers and older people.

Increase acceptabilty of such technology among informal carersand older people.

Further research on the impact of telecare on informal carers and their acceptance of such technology is needed.

Thank you for your attention.

"There are only four kinds of people in the world: those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers,and those who will need caregivers.„

- Rosalynn Carter, Former First lady of the US

»The authors acknowledge the projects (Smart ICT Solutions for Active and Healthy Ageing: Integrating Informal eCare Services in Slovenia, ID L5-

7626, Factors impacting intention to use smart technology enabled care services among family carers of older people in the context of long-distance

care, ID J5-1785, Programme Internet research, P5-0399) were financially supported by the Slovenian Research Agency.«

Contact information:Dr Simona Hvalič-TouzeryUniversity of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social SciencesKardeljeva ploščad 5, 1000 LjubljanaE-mail: Simona.Hvalic-Touzery@fdv.uni-lj.si

Co-researchers: Dr Vesna Dolničar, Kaja Smole-Orehek, Dr Andraž Petrovčič https://eurocarers.org/download/5490/

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