key: cord-0855259-qiu2a9p9
authors: Thangavel, Gomathi; Memedi, Mevludin; Hedström, Karin
title: Customized Information and Communication Technology for Reducing Social Isolation and Loneliness Among Older Adults: Scoping Review
date: 2022-03-07
journal: JMIR Ment Health
DOI: 10.2196/34221
sha: 61005afc29bcb632c4424cb02422f84bbbd2d009
doc_id: 855259
cord_uid: qiu2a9p9

BACKGROUND: Advancements in science and various technologies have resulted in people having access to better health care, a good quality of life, and better economic situations, enabling humans to live longer than ever before. Research shows that the problems of loneliness and social isolation are common among older adults, affecting psychological and physical health. Information and communication technology (ICT) plays an important role in alleviating social isolation and loneliness. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this review is to explore ICT solutions for reducing social isolation or loneliness among older adults, the purpose of ICT solutions, and the evaluation focus of these solutions. This study particularly focuses on customized ICT solutions that either are designed from scratch or are modifications of existing off-the-shelf products that cater to the needs of older adults. METHODS: A scoping literature review was conducted. A search across 7 databases, including ScienceDirect, Association for Computing Machinery, PubMed, IEEE Xplore, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science, was performed, targeting ICT solutions for reducing and managing social isolation and loneliness among older adults. Articles published in English from 2010 to 2020 were extracted and analyzed. RESULTS: From the review of 39 articles, we identified 5 different purposes of customized ICT solutions focusing on reducing social isolation and loneliness. These were social communication, social participation, a sense of belonging, companionship, and feelings of being seen. The mapping of purposes of ICT solutions with problems found among older adults indicates that increasing social communication and social participation can help reduce social isolation problems, whereas fulfilling emotional relationships and feeling valued can reduce feelings of loneliness. In terms of customized ICT solution types, we found the following seven different categories: social network, messaging services, video chat, virtual spaces or classrooms with messaging capabilities, robotics, games, and content creation and management. Most of the included studies (30/39, 77%) evaluated the usability and acceptance aspects, and few studies (11/39, 28%) focused on loneliness or social isolation outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: This review highlights the importance of discussing and managing social isolation and loneliness as different but related concepts and emphasizes the need for future research to use suitable outcome measures for evaluating ICT solutions based on the problem. Even though a wide range of customized ICT solutions have been developed, future studies need to explore the recent emerging technologies, such as the Internet of Things and augmented or virtual reality, to tackle social isolation and loneliness among older adults. Furthermore, future studies should consider evaluating social isolation or loneliness while developing customized ICT solutions to provide more robust data on the effectiveness of the solutions.

-Decrease in emotional loneliness and an improvement in social loneliness; however, values for general loneliness did not decrease in either group. Also, no difference was found in the feeling of loneliness between control and experimental condition.

-Self-esteem values increased only for the control condition.

-Engagement and involvement were high in both groups and no significant difference between control and experiment group The overall acceptance of the current system was rather low. Only three participants (three from the one-on-one sessions, none from the workshop) could imagine using the system in the future if it were improved, and one was determined not to use such a system in any case -participants in all conditions associated the non-verbal gestures with a social context and especially associated with the feelings of being seen.

-participants gave higher acceptance rating for game function.

UEQuser experience questionnaire, GDS -Geriatric depression scale, TAM3 -Technology Acceptance Model 3, R-UCLA -Revised University of California