{"title":"Older Adults' Experiences with Remote Care for Specialized Health Service During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Descriptive Qualitative Study.","authors":"Alice Gaudine, Karen Parsons, Joanne Smith-Young","doi":"10.1017/S0714980823000636","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic necessitated a rapid uptake of remote health care services. This qualitative descriptive study was designed to gain an understanding of older adults' experiences of remote care (telephone or online video conference appointments) for specialized health services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Twenty-one older adults (ages 65 years and older; 8 men and 13 women) living in eastern Canada participated in a semi-structured telephone interview. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The vast majority of older adults were overall satisfied with their remote experiences of specialist care. Advantages to remote care for specialized services included convenience, safety during the pandemic, comfort, efficiency, and ease of visit. Disadvantages included communication not as effective, feeling depersonalized or disembodied, missing the human relationship, and wanting reassurance of physical assessment. It is important that health professionals understand the disadvantages for older adults of remote care visits in order to mitigate them.</p>","PeriodicalId":47613,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal on Aging-Revue Canadienne Du Vieillissement","volume":" ","pages":"257-265"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Canadian Journal on Aging-Revue Canadienne Du Vieillissement","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0714980823000636","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/10/23 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"GERONTOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic necessitated a rapid uptake of remote health care services. This qualitative descriptive study was designed to gain an understanding of older adults' experiences of remote care (telephone or online video conference appointments) for specialized health services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Twenty-one older adults (ages 65 years and older; 8 men and 13 women) living in eastern Canada participated in a semi-structured telephone interview. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The vast majority of older adults were overall satisfied with their remote experiences of specialist care. Advantages to remote care for specialized services included convenience, safety during the pandemic, comfort, efficiency, and ease of visit. Disadvantages included communication not as effective, feeling depersonalized or disembodied, missing the human relationship, and wanting reassurance of physical assessment. It is important that health professionals understand the disadvantages for older adults of remote care visits in order to mitigate them.
期刊介绍:
The Canadian Journal on Aging/La Revue canadienne du vieillissement (CJA/RCV) promotes excellence in research and disseminates the latest work of researchers in the social sciences, humanities, health and biological sciences who study the older population of Canada and other countries; informs policy debates relevant to aging through the publication of the highest quality research; seeks to improve the quality of life for Canada"s older population and for older populations in other parts of the world through the publication of research that focuses on the broad range of relevant issues from income security to family relationships to service delivery and best practices.