Integrating Perceived Psychosocial Outcomes Into the Assessment of Telecare Acceptability Among Slovenian Informal Caregivers of Older People: Cross-Sectional Survey Study.

BACKGROUND

While telecare has considerable potential to improve home care services, benefit older adults, and support informal caregivers, its adoption remains limited. There is also a notable gap in empirical research on the factors that influence informal caregivers' behavioral intention to use telecare. In particular, existing theoretical acceptance models are insufficiently comprehensive, as they do not specifically address informal caregivers of older adults and have largely overlooked the psychosocial outcomes of engaging with telecare.

OBJECTIVE

This study examined the behavioral intention of Slovenian informal caregivers of older adults to use telecare, focusing on the preuse stage of technology acceptance, by integrating the perceived psychosocial outcomes of telecare engagement (peace of mind, reduced anxiety, sense of safety, and perceived connectedness with the care recipient) into the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model.

METHODS

The study applied nested ordinary least squares regression analysis to survey data collected in 2021 in Slovenia from informal caregivers of older adults, all of whom were aged 40 years or older. Of 612 respondents in the dataset, 558 were retained after excluding current or former users of care-related assistive technologies; the regression analyses were based on the 526 participants with complete data on all model variables.

RESULTS

The regression analysis used 3 nested models to examine predictors of the intention of informal caregivers of older adults to use telecare. The first model, which included only background variables (burden of care, financial coping, and caregiver sociodemographic characteristics), had limited explanatory power (R²=0.03), with financial coping as the only significant predictor (β=-0.14, P=.005). Adding UTAUT predictors significantly improved the model's fit (R²=0.49). Performance expectancy (β=0.52, P<.001), facilitating conditions (β=0.11, P=.005), and social influence (β=0.21, P<.001) emerged as additional significant predictors. Incorporating perceived psychosocial outcomes further improved the model's fit and increased the explained variance (R²=0.54); this additional factor also showed the strongest association (β=0.41, P<.001). Patterns for the other predictors remained consistent across models, but including perceived psychosocial outcomes substantially reduced the coefficient for performance expectancy.

CONCLUSIONS

In this cross-sectional sample, perceived psychosocial outcomes were the predictors most strongly associated with behavioral intention in the extended UTAUT model, indicating that they may be important factors in understanding telecare acceptability among informal caregivers. The findings suggest that developers, policymakers, and health and social care providers should consider not only functional aspects of telecare but also the psychosocial needs of informal caregivers. As the study measured self-reported intention at the preuse stage rather than actual use, longitudinal and behavioral research is needed to establish whether these associations translate into telecare adoption.