Abstract:
The trend of using mobile devices amongst the elderly population is continuously increasing. This study consisted of three phases. The first phase aimed to survey the situation of mobile communication device and application usages among elderly users in Thailand through the use a questionnaire survey as well as face-to-face interviews was used for data collection. The number of the participants in first phase was 448 elderly people. The participants mostly used mobile communication devices and applications in the morning and in the evening. The information in first phase was used to develop mobile applications in this study. The second phase was a cross-sectional descriptive study to assess health risks from mobile communication device and application usages among 490 elderly people in Thailand via Healthy e-Elderly People Assessment (HEPA) application. Most participants (65.9%) fell into moderate risk level of physical health and 10.0% of them fell into severe risk level of physical health. The third phase was a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the Healthy e-Elderly People Intervention (HEPI) Application in terms of improved knowledge, attitude, and practices, and reduce the physical health effects from mobile communication device and application usages. The HEPI application in Thai context was developed by a questionnaire and information from phase I and II. The number of the participants were 66 including 33 in the intervention group and 33 in the control group. The results shown that the mean scores of knowledge, attitude, and practices levels were significantly different between the intervention and the control groups at follow-up 1 (p=0.041, p=0.006, and p<0.001 respectively). The mean scores of physical health risk in both the intervention and the control groups were similar which radically decreased from baseline to follow-up 1, then increased at follow-up 2 (p=0.899). Whether the elderly people in Thailand increase the length of time use on mobile communication devices and applications, it may result in risk for several serious health conditions. The HEPI application can be used for improving knowledge, attitude, and practices, and reduce the health effects of excessive use of mobile communication devices and applications.
