Best Practice Guidance
Human Interaction with Technology in Dementia

Guidance

Make clear how you define the outcome of social participation and assess different dimensions of this multidimensional concept when evaluating the effects of social technology on social participation.

Explanation and examples

A systematic review was conducted to gain insight into the effects of technological interventions on the social participation of older adults. A total of 36 studies was included in a narrative synthesis. A major finding was the inconsistent use of terms and concepts related to social participation among studies. Future studies should make the applied definition of social participation explicit to allow for comparison of research results.

Furthermore, a majority of the included studies measured one specific dimension of social participation, i.e: social connections (e.g. by measuring loneliness or social isolation). However, social participation is a multidimensional concept. It is not only about social connections, but also about being engaged in meaningful activities that provide social interaction with others in the community (Levasseur et al., 2010). So far, there is no outcome measure that covers all dimensions of social participation. Therefore, it is recommended to combine quantitative outcome measures with qualitative data collection methods when assessing the effect(s) of technology on social participation. In the future, research should focus on developing and validating an outcome measure that covers different dimensions of social participation.