Madlen Scheibe*, Technische Universität Dresden, Medizinische Fakultät Carl Gustav Carus, Research Association Public Health Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, Dresden, Germany Wilhelm Kirch, Technische Universität Dresden, Medizinische Fakultät Carl Gustav Carus, Research Association Public Health Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, Dresden, Germany Track: Research Presentation Topic: Mobile & Tablet Health Applications Presentation Type: Oral presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Building: Sol Principe Room: C - Almudaina Date: 2014-10-10 09:00 AM – 09:45 AM Last modified: 2014-09-10

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Background
Mobile applications for diabetics offer great potential to support therapy management and therefore to increase therapy adherence and reduce the probability of occurrence of accompanying and secondary diseases. However, apps are rarely used by the elderly due to a lack of acceptance.

Objective
We investigated the question: “Which factors influence the acceptance of diabetes apps amongst patients age 50 years or older?” Particular emphasis was placed on the current use of mobile devices and applications, acceptance promoting/inhibiting factors, features of a helpful diabetes app and potentially needed support. This study was the third of three sub-studies investigating the factors that influence acceptance amongst diabetes patients age 50 years or older.

Methods
Guided interviews were chosen in order to get a comprehensive insight into the subjective perspective of elderly diabetes patients. A theory-based and uniform interview guideline with open questions was developed as a basis for the study. At the end of each interview, the patients were asked to test two already existing diabetes apps to reveal difficulties in (first) use.

Results
Altogether, 32 type 1 and type 2 diabetics were interviewed. The average age was 68,8 years. 15 out of 32 patients (46,9%) knew apps, but only two patients (6,5%, 2/32) already used a diabetes app within their therapy. The reasons reported against the use of apps were a lack of additional benefits (50,0%, 4/8) compared to present ways of therapy management, a lack of interoperability with other devices/applications (12,5%, 1/8) and no joy of use (12,5%, 1/8). The app test revealed the following main difficulties in use: a lack of intuitive handling and understanding (89,7%, 26/29), unclear menu navigation and labelings within the menu (65,5%, 19/29), too small size of font and operating elements (48,3%, 14/29) and difficulties to recognize and press click-sensitive areas (49,3%, 14/29). Furthermore, the patients were missing individually important functions (37,9%, 11/29) or offered functions were assessed as unnecessary for their own therapy needs (34,5%, 10/29). As the most important contents of a helpful diabetes app were reported: the possibility to add comments to measured values (32,1%, 9/28), the definition of thresholds for blood glucose values and highlighting deviating values (25,0%, 7/28) as well as a reminder for measurement/medication (25,0%, 7/28). 71,0% (22/31) were bothered by the use of foreign language terms within apps. The most important contact persons in case of questions concerning technical issues were family members, especially (grand)children (61,3, 19/31).

Conclusions
A lack of additional benefits and ease of use emerged as the key factors for the acceptance of diabetes apps among patients aged 50 or older. Furthermore, it has been shown that the needs of the investigated target group are highly heterogenous due to differences in previous knowledge, age, type of diabetes and therapy. Therefore, the contents of a helpful diabetes app should be individually adaptable. Personal contact persons, especially during the first time of use, are of utmost importance to reduce the fear or erroneous data input and to raise acceptance amongst this target group.