Introduction:
Across Europe, informal care is an important source of long-term care provision. Governments and companies offer an increasing supply of online support and digital solutions for the domains of health and care. Large-scale evidence on the diffusion of digital technologies among older persons involved in family care is scarce. This article aims to investigate digital inequalities in the context of informal care and to explore the role of socio-economic aspects, health-related factors, and social-environmental factors.
Methodology:
Data source is the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), waves 5, 6, 7, and 8. Samples for analysis include 14,059 care recipients and 15,813 caregivers aged 50 years and older. Multivariate logistic regressions model the probability of not using the internet.
Results:
For both caregivers and care recipients, the following characteristics are significantly associated with a higher likelihood of being offline: older age, cognitive limitations, severe impairment of close-up vision, and living in a rural area. In contrast, individuals with a higher level of education, a good financial situation, who are active in the labour market, living with a partner, and have children are more likely to be onliners.
Conclusions:
To ensure that all population groups benefit equally from digital transformation, knowledge about the characteristics of the target users and non-users is crucial. Experts and policy-makers, who consider digital solutions as one remedy for reducing the burden of care and tackling the care crisis, should consider that a large proportion of people involved in informal care are currently offliners.
Digital technology has already fundamentally changed care, from mobile medical apps and fitness trackers to software and communication platforms. Current studies prove the effectiveness of digital health applications with regard to medicine. However, there is a research deficit with respect to the relation of digital health and care applications to the discipline of nursing. Due to the different requirements of medicine and nursing, existing models for the benefit assessment of digital health applications do not sufficiently address the specific needs of the complex nursing context. The aim of this paper is therefore to present those benefit dimensions from existing models that are specifically relevant for nursing. For this purpose, a literature review was conducted to identify relevant models for the benefit assessment of digital applications in nursing. A content analysis was used to consolidate benefit dimensions from existing models that serve the benefit assessment of care or digital health applications. The bibliometric evaluation identifies three stakeholder levels, to which a total of 14 benefit dimensions are assigned. The stakeholders include care recipients, family caregivers and professional caregivers. In order to illustrate the generated dimensions of benefit, they are assigned to potential digital solutions in care that are available on the German digital-health market today (as of January / 2023). The results of the content analysis show possibilities for further research by revealing research needs in relation to digitalisation in the care context.
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