Research On The Obstacles And Influencing Factors Of Digital Health Technology Application In Homebound Older Adults

Objective:A cross-sectional survey and semi-structured interview were conducted on the application status of home digital health technology for the elderly to investigate the difficulties of the elderly residents in the application of digital health technology in the community,analyze the obstacles and influencing factors faced by the elderly in the application of digital health technology,and explore the appeals of the elderly in the application of digital health technology.Methods:A total of 660 elderly people aged 60 years or older in Bengbu city were selected to collect the basic information of elderly people,the use of digital health technology in their home environment,and the barrier factors in the use of digital health technology.SPSS 25.0 statistical software was applied for general descriptive analysis,and independent sample t-test and one-way ANOVA were used for analysis of variance to explore the differences in the duration of digital health technology use and barriers to digital health technology use among older adults with different demographic information;multiple linear regression was used to explore the correlations between demographic information such as age and education and barriers to digital health technology use.AMOS 24.0 statistical software was applied to set up a structural equation model,and the model was fitted and evaluated and corrected.Results:There was no significant difference between older adults of different genders in terms of years of digital health device use and daily digital health device use time(p>0.05);older adults of different age groups,education,and income were significantly different in terms of years of digital health device use and daily digital health device use time(p<0.05).Age is negatively correlated with the service life of digital health equipment,that is,the older the age,the shorter the service life of digital health equipment;Education level is positively correlated with the service life of digital health equipment,that is,the higher the education level,the longer the service life of digital health equipment;Age is negatively correlated with the time spent on digital health devices,that is,the older the age,the shorter the time spent on digital health devices per day;Education level is positively correlated with the daily use time of digital health devices,that is,the higher the education level,the longer the daily use time of digital health devices.In the model of barriers to digital health technology adoption among older adults,privacy protection and social support have a direct influence on the barriers to digital health technology adoption among older adults,with coefficients of 3.24 and-0.53,respectively;the objective environment has an indirect influence.The higher the concern about privacy protection,the more significant the barriers to digital health technology adoption among older adults,and the higher the social support,the less significant the barriers to digital health technology adoption among older adults.The coefficients of positive direct effects between the remaining factors,except for privacy protection as well as social support on barriers to digital health technology adoption among older adults,were specifically 1.19 for objective environment on device barriers,0.84 for social support direct effects,and 0.44 for privacy protection.Conclusion:1.older adults of different genders,age groups,education,and income possess significant differences in the duration of digital health device use.2.Age was negatively correlated with years of digital health device use and digital health device use time,and education was positively correlated with daily digital health device use time.3.objective environment can indirectly influence the barriers to digital health technology adoption through social support and privacy protection.