Health Technology Use in Germany Among Older Adults (Part II): Short Time Changes in Health-Related Information and mHealth Applications

Abstract

AbstractDemographic change in Germany has been discussed on a grand scale in the past years. Feared and denied at first; research was conducted; approaches were presented, and measures derived. The health care sector is an area of special interest because demographic change is affecting it twice: on the one hand, more elderly patients have to be treated while at the other hand, less medical staff is being trained. It is expected that digitization can provide a solution. But is this true? How can digitization help to relieve the burden on medical staff in particular? Are digital services and available information used by older people? Or do they reject them? Finding answers to these questions is the aim of this longitudinal study. The focus was on the usage of information and communication technology (ICT) by the elderly (older people) (60+) in Germany. This study by the interdisciplinary research team “Tech4Age” consists of two surveys from 2016/2017 (survey I) and 2018/2019 (survey II). The article presents the results of the second survey, focusing on the comparison of both surveys as well as on potential changes. The sample consisted of N = 649 participants (54.6% male and 45.4% female) with an average age of 66.11 years (SD = 5.45 years). A fundamental aspect of the surveys was to examine the use of health-related information and levels of trust, the general (smartphone and tablet) applications and mHealth applications used by older adults plus information and communication technology used by older adults. Due to the large scope of both the surveys and the results, the latter will be presented in two separate articles. This paper concentrates on the first two aspects: the use of health-related information and levels of trust as well as on general and mHealth applications used by older adults.In order to examine the use of health-related information and levels of trust, health literacy (HL) was taken into account. The focus here is on coping strategies in the context of health. HL is the ability to obtain, understand, and use health information for decision-making [1]. In contrast, Health Information Seeking Behaviour (HISB) encompasses individual abilities [2,3,4]. The research questions from 2016/2017 were adopted and compared with each other: (1) What kind of health information needs do older adults have? (2) How do older adults seek information on healthcare topics? (3) Which levels of health competences do older adults in Germany have? Results indicate that older adults are still satisfied with the information they receive on healthcare. The data shows that doctors and pharmacists are number one sources older adults rely on regarding reliability of information on healthcare. Information sources as Internet, TV or newspapers and magazines show an increase in demand.The second aim was to look at the potential of ICT-use by older and very old end users. Here, the use of apps and mHealth (“mobile Health”) apps was put into focus. mHealth can be defined as “the system built around the mobile technology to manage healthcare information” [5]. To further deepen these results, the following research questions were examined: (1) Do older adults use (smartphone and tablet) applications? If so, do they use mHealth applications? (2) What are the reasons for not using mHealth applications? (3) If mHealth applications are used by older adults, what type of applications do they use? (4) How do older adults find out about (smartphone and tablet) applications? Results show that the age group of older adults uses applications on smartphones as well as on tablets, but there seems to be a decreasing trend by the usage of mHealth applications compared to 2016/2017. Nevertheless, mHealth applications are still regularly used. Especially applications installed on smartphones tend to be used daily. Considering mHealth applications, fitness apps are used the most although apps for measuring calories, first aid apps or applications on health insurance companies provide a considerable increase in usage.KeywordsOlder adultsGermanyICTInformation-seeking behaviorHealthErgonomics