USECARE AAL – Use Cases for Informal Care

Exploring the acceptance of a self-management support system for community-dwelling older adults with chronic conditions and their informal caregivers. Furthermore mapping effects on symptoms, clinical outcomes, behaviour change and quality of life.

Basis

Information and communication technology (ICT-)based interventions are considered useful for chronic disease management as they reach out to large numbers of individuals at relatively low cost and may provide benefits for community-dwelling older adults and informal caregivers. In Switzerland, SENACA (SENior health ACAdemy) has been developed by the European Medical Network EMN. SENACA is a structured self-management support system with several interacting components, combining tele-monitoring devices and a solution for personalised health plans. This online support system’s usability, the behaviour change techniques it builds on, modes of delivery and its effects on health-related behaviour, clinical and Quality-of-Life outcomes will be established in a larger group of end-users. Testing the usability of SENACA and practical effectiveness of this intervention is the goal of this multi-national EU-funded ambient assisted living (AAL) project USECARE. SENACA will be implemented in three countries (Israel, Norway and Switzerland) via field test with community-dwelling older adults living with chronic conditions (i.e. diabetes, COPD, chronic heart failure) and their informal caregivers.

Project

Key element of USECARE AAL is a field-test including a study with a pre-experimental design with three time point measurements and a pre-usability round. Multiple methods will be used to evaluate the usability and to observe clinical and process parameters before, during and after the implementation of the enhanced SENACA prototype.
All of the results combined will provide an insight into the end-user experience, usage pattern, usability perception and potential added value of the enhanced SENACA prototype for chronic disease management in the participating countries.

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02832739

Duration

May 2015–March 2017

Institutions

Institute of Nursing Science INS, University of Basel, Bernoullistrasse 28, CH-4056 Basel
Careum Research, Pestalozzistrasse 3, CH-8032 Zurich

Project team

Institute of Nursing Sciences INS: Sabina de Geest PhD RN (Co-Investigator), Mette Langeland Iversen M.Sc. PhD Student
Careum Research: Dr. Jörg Haslbeck (Principal Investigator), Urs A. Fichtner M.Sc. (Research Associate), Sylvie Zanoni M.A. (Research Associate)