The Influence of Culture on Older Adults' Adoption of Smart Home Monitoring

Purpose/Aim. The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of culture on older adults’ decisions to adopt smart home monitoring. Aims are to: (1) explicate older adults’ knowledge, perceptions and descriptions of smart home monitoring as these relate to self-identified culturally based expectations, and (2) understand the influence of socially constructed predictors and barriers on smart home monitoring adoption.

Rationale/Conceptual Basis/Background. This interdisciplinary study focuses on innovative and potentially cost effective solutions for improving choice for residential living, safety, and quality of life in the growing aging population.  It explores older adults’ decisions regarding the adoption of smart home monitoring and the influence of one’s culture on a decision to allow in-home monitoring, a question that has not previously been asked.  Although various smart home technologies are market ready, this study specifically focuses on smart home monitoring using artificial intelligence capable of learning human patterns of motion with applied software algorithms that identify anomalies and predict or identify changes in health status and alert caregivers or professionals.

Methods. This qualitative descriptive study involves 20-25 participants, recruited via purposive sampling. Data is collected by email interview exchanges, including both discrete and unstructured text-based solicitations from participants. Content analysis is used to analyze transcripts in iterative fashion, resulting in developing themes and representations with low inference. Simple summaries of identified themes supported with participants’ own words provide a rich description that remains close to the original source. Descriptions will be used to inform question development for a psychometrics email survey which will be used in a large survey study.

Results. Formative results are revealing novel understandings about the influence of cultural values on potential adoption. Completed analysis will be reported in this presentation.

 Implications. This innovative research is the first to examine culture as a potential influencing factor on adoption of in-home ambient monitoring. It is important that nurses understand how older adults receive such technology so that they can develop effective ways to implement its use to serve the needs of a growing aging population.