Purchasing and Using Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS): How decisions are made by community-dwelling seniors in Canada

Authors

Alexandra C. McKenna, Western University
Marita Kloseck, Western University
Richard Crilly, Western University
Jan Polgar, Western University

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-11-2015

Journal

BMC Geriatrics

Volume

15

Issue

1

URL with Digital Object Identifier

10.1186/s12877-015-0079-z

Abstract

© 2015 McKenna et al. Background: As the demographic of older people continues to grow, health services that support independence among community-dwelling seniors have become increasingly important. Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS) are medical alert systems, designed to serve as a safety net for seniors living alone. Health care professionals often recommend that seniors in danger of falls or other medical emergencies obtain a PERS. The purpose of the study was to investigate the experience of seniors living with and using a PERS in their daily lives, using a qualitative grounded theory approach. Methods: Five focus groups and 10 semi-structured interviews, with a total of 30 participants, were completed using a grounded theory approach. All participants were PERS subscribers over the age of 80, living alone in a naturally occurring retirement community (NORC) with high health service utilization in a major urban centre in Ontario. Constant comparative analysis was used to develop themes and ultimately a model of why and how seniors obtain and use the PERS. Results: Two core themes, unpredictability and decision-making around PERS activation, emerged as major features of the theoretical model. Being able to get help and the psychological value of PERS informed the context of living with a PERS. Conclusions: A number of theoretical conclusions related to unpredictability and the decision-making process around activating PERS were generated.

Notes

© 2015 McKenna et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver(http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.