As the health care industry shifts into the digital age, patients are increasingly being provided with access to electronic personal health records (PHRs) that are tethered to their provider-maintained electronic health records. This unprecedented access to personal health information can enable patients to more effectively manage their health, but little is actually known about patients' ability to successfully use a PHR to perform health management tasks or the individual factors that influence task performance. This study evaluated the ability of 56 middle-aged adults (40-59 years) and 51 older adults (60-85 years) to use a simulated PHR to perform 15 common health management tasks encompassing medication management, review/interpretation of lab/test results, and health maintenance activities. Results indicated that participants in both age groups experienced significant difficulties in using the PHR to complete routine health management tasks. Data also showed that older adults, particularly those with lower numeracy and technology experience, encountered greater problems using the system. Furthermore, data revealed that the cognitive abilities predicting one's task performance varied according to the complexity of the task. Results from this study identify important factors to consider in the design of PHRs so that they meet the needs of middle-aged and older adults. As deployment of PHRs is on the rise, knowledge of the individual factors that impact effective PHR use is critical to preventing an increase in health care disparities between those who are able to use a PHR and those who are not.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 13. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 June 2023.
All research outputs
#2,911,634
of 26,187,546 outputs
Outputs from Psychology and Aging
#247
of 1,158 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#31,173
of 323,485 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Psychology and Aging
#8
of 23 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 26,187,546 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 88th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,158 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 18.7. This one has done well, scoring higher than 78% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 323,485 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 23 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 65% of its contemporaries.
