IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v54y2002i9p1441-1451.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Awareness among community-dwelling elderly of assistive devices for mobility and self-care and attitudes towards their use

Author

Listed:
  • Roelands, Marc
  • Van Oost, Paulette
  • Buysse, Ann
  • Depoorter, AnneMarie

Abstract

The researchers conducted a survey by personal interview of elderly people (75+years) receiving home nursing (N=117) in Belgium to investigate the extent of their awareness and perceptions of the existing supply of assistive devices for mobility and selfcare (ADs). A new scale has been developed to measure the possession and the awareness of ADs, the Assistive Devices Awareness Scale. The researchers identified important gaps regarding the awareness of ADs, despite their widespread usefulness and their commercial availability. Even persons with specific disabilities were not necessarily aware of the ADs available to assist with their particular problems. Nevertheless, the elderly persons presented positive attitudes regarding the possibility of using devices as a partial substitute for care and advocated participation in financing the purchase of ADs. Opinions regarding the effect of using ADs on feelings of loneliness differed quite extensively. Most people who were receiving home nursing already possessed ADs. These elderly people perceived mainly positive consequences from using the ADs they already possessed. Linear forward regression analysis revealed that for the elderly clients of home nursing services, the possession of devices is correlated with the extent to which there is a growing need for care, people are aware of the existing devices and people perceive the consequences of using ADs as positive. Implications for future research are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Roelands, Marc & Van Oost, Paulette & Buysse, Ann & Depoorter, AnneMarie, 2002. "Awareness among community-dwelling elderly of assistive devices for mobility and self-care and attitudes towards their use," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 54(9), pages 1441-1451, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:54:y:2002:i:9:p:1441-1451
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(01)00126-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:54:y:2002:i:9:p:1441-1451. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.