Towards Integrated Care for the Elderly: Exploring the Acceptability of Telemonitoring for Hypertension and Type 2...

Telemonitoring has been proposed as an effective method to support integrated care for older people with hypertension and type 2 diabetes. This paper examines acceptability of telemontioring, its role in supporting integrated care, and identifies scale-up barriers.

A concurrent triangulation mixed-methods study, including in-depth interviews (n = 29) and quantitative acceptability tool (n = 55) was conducted among individuals who underwent a 12-month telemonitoring routine. The research was guided by the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability. Interviews were analysed using template content analysis (TCA).

TCA identified seven domains of acceptability, with twenty-one subthemes influencing it positively or negatively. In the quantitative survey, acceptability was high across all seven domains with an overall score of 4.4 out of 5. Urban regions showed higher acceptability than rural regions (4.5 vs. 4.3), with rural participants perceiving initial training and participation effort as significantly more burdensome than their urban counterparts.

Patients described several instances where telemonitoring supported self-management, education, treatment, and identification elements of the integrated care package. However, there were barriers that may limit its further scale-up.

For further scale-up, it is important to screen patients for monitoring eligibility, adapt telemonitoring devices to elderly needs, combine telemonitoring with health education, involve family members, and establish follow-up programmes.