HELP? Attitudes towards care and assistive technologies from the perspective of people with disabilities

Abstract

Increasing care needs represent major challenges for today’s care sectors. Developing assistive technologies such as Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) systems pose a potential approach to face these challenges by relieving care staff or facilitating everyday life, e.g., for people with disabilities. Thereby, acceptance is essential for a sustainable adoption of assistive technologies in real life. So far, research has focused on technology-related as well as demographic factors and persons’ attitudes (e.g., technical self-efficacy) impacting technology acceptance. In contrast, individual attitudes towards the own situation - in particular individual attitudes towards care – have not been considered as potential influencing factors on the acceptance of assistive technologies. In order to create an appropriate measuring instrument for attitudes towards care, two empirical studies were carried out: In an online survey study (n = 34) persons’ attitudes towards the own care situation and their relationships to attitudes towards usage of assistive technologies were studied out of the perspective of people with disabilities. The exploratory confirmed instrument “attitudes towards care” was related with acceptance and perception of assistive technologies focusing on people of different ages with physical disabilities. Results of the second study (n = 64) verified these relationships focusing on elderly people in need of care. This suggests that attitudes towards care are acceptance-relevant for diverse groups of people. The results can be used to investigate relationships between individual perceptions of care and (assistive) technology acceptance in detail and to refine and adapt the attitude towards care instrument for diverse user groups.