Abstract
This health communication project measured the psychosocial influences of computer anxiety, computer confidence, and computer self-efficacy in older adults at six meal congregate sites. The adults completed a five-week education intervention, based on Bandura's self-efficacy model, designed to assist older adults in retrieving and evaluating health information resources on the Internet. One hundred thirty-seven participants, ages sixty-five and older, were randomized in a controlled, two-group, pre-post, repeated measures design. Participants in the intervention group received a two-hour training session, once a week for five weeks. The Computer Confidence Subscale and Computer Anxiety Subscale of the Computer Attitude Scale and the Computer Self-Efficacy Measure were administered to both groups at three time intervals: at baseline, completion of the five-week intervention, and six weeks after completion of the intervention. Data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance. Findings showed a reduction in computer anxiety and increases in computer confidence and computer self-efficacy in retrieving and evaluating online health information (P<0.001). The study suggests an array of possibilities to engage older adults in the use of Internet health information resources to better contribute to their health, independence, safety, and wellness.
Highlights
There has been an explosion of online health information resources targeted to older adults since the adoption of new technologies for health communication
The quality of online information and the readability level of this information has always been a concern to many health care providers and consumers
The results showed the means for computer anxiety at baseline (M526.13; SD55.77), at the completion of the 5-week training (M534.87; SD55.37), and 6 weeks after the training (M535.05; SD55.39) were significantly different F (2, 109)568.14, P,0.001)
Summary
There has been an explosion of online health information resources targeted to older adults since the adoption of new technologies for health communication. The quality of online information and the readability level of this information has always been a concern to many health care providers and consumers. Many older adults have unique physical and motor difficulties and, to some extent, cognitive impairment. Because motor skill decreases in old age, a person may find clicking a mouse or scrolling down a page much more difficult than someone who is younger. Vision may be affected when backgrounds are heavily patterned or a page uses fancy fonts. The usability of health websites for older adults have improved greatly in recent years, most websites on the Internet do have serious readability problems such as small font sizes, inappropriate instruction on how to use video streaming, and too many activities on a single web page [1]
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