| Sumario: | Purpose Older adults living in communities have very diverse needs and preferences. Communication and cooperation between care managers, multidisciplinary teams, and health leaders are important to provide individualized health services that reflect the needs and preferences of the aged. In this study, we seek to introduce a case of a smartphone-based application used as a communication tool to provide tailored interventions for older adults living in the community. Methods The 'Health and Wellness Program for Seniors(HWePS) project' is currently being carried out in an urban small-area designated based on socioeconomic indicators. The HWePS utilizes a smartphone application (the HWePS project app) to encourage seniors' ability for self-care through individualized care management using a peer-support via community health leaders. As care managers, assigned nurses set individualized intervention plans reflecting individual seniors' needs and preferences. According to the intervention plan, tailored nutrition, exercise, emotional, and social interventions programs are provided to the seniors for 12 weeks by an interdisciplinary team of professionals. The contents of the tailored programs are built into the smartphone application. Its end users include seniors and community health leaders. The leaders help seniors maintain their self-care using the app using a to-do checklist for health behaviors such as "walking more than 30 minutes", "drinking 6 cups of water", and "participating in group social settings". Utilization of the application makes it possible to provide a tailored intervention based on peer-support, rather than a uniform intervention that disregards the different needs and preferences of older adults. To enhance utilization of the application, we provided education to senior participants, community health leaders, and the professional team of nurses, dietitian, physical trainer and social worker. 216 senior participants received the care management intervention, and education on the smartphone application was provided to 42 community health leaders and 7 professional health workers. We analyze the effectiveness of a 12-week intensive intervention program for two clusters of seniors (n=216) that received the intervention between fall 2021 to summer 2022, using paired t-tests. Results and discussion Of 216 participants, the following analysis reports data for 197 individuals who responded to the pre-post survey. 62% of participants were women and 61% of participants were aged between 65-74. Proportion of those who participated in regular walking improved from 63% to 78% (p=0.001), proportion of those aware of their own blood sugar levels increased from 50% to 63% (p=0.006), and proportion of those experiencing stress decreased from 13% to 7% (p=0.028). While there were positive improvements in mental health and self-rated health, they were not statistically significant. The ICT-integrated HWePS project provides integrated and tailored services. In particular, the use of ICT for health information and communication tool to encourage healthy behaviors enhanced older adults' self-management in times of COVID-19. Furthermore, various health and behavior outcomes improved, providing evidence for effectiveness of an ICT-based community health service model.
|
|---|