Using a Mobile Application for Health Communication to Facilitate a Sense of Coherence: Experiences of Older Persons with Cognitive Impairment

Erik Piculell, Lisa Skär, Johan Sanmartin Berglund, Peter Anderberg and Doris Bohman
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Erik Piculell: Department of Health, Faculty of Engineering, Blekinge Institute of Technology, 371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden
Lisa Skär: Department of Health, Faculty of Engineering, Blekinge Institute of Technology, 371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden
Johan Sanmartin Berglund: Department of Health, Faculty of Engineering, Blekinge Institute of Technology, 371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden
Peter Anderberg: Department of Health, Faculty of Engineering, Blekinge Institute of Technology, 371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden
Doris Bohman: Department of Health, Faculty of Engineering, Blekinge Institute of Technology, 371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-16

Abstract: The increasing use of technology by older persons and their preferences for living at home and being independent have created an avenue for self-care and care delivery using mobile technologies and health communication. This study aimed to explain how older persons with cognitive impairment experienced technology-based health communication through the use of a mobile application to facilitate a sense of coherence. Individual, semi-structured interviews with 16 participants in the SMART4MD project were conducted. The interviews were transcribed then coded deductively and thematically, creating themes that corresponded to the central components of the sense of coherence model: comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. The findings produced an overall theme: a challenging technology that can provide support, based on the three identified themes: making sense of mobile technologies, mastering mobile technologies, and the potential added value to use mobile technologies. The participants’ experiences were influenced by their previous use and expectations for the application. Personal support, cognitive and physical ability, and different sources for information impacted use. The participants experienced that using the application created an ambiguity to be challenging and have possible benefits. The study suggests that the sense of coherence model may be used as a method to understand the use of technology by older populations.

Keywords: cognitive impairment; health communication; mobile application; older persons; sense of coherence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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