Evaluation of a virtual 4-week digital literacy program for older adults during COVID-19: a pilot study

ABSTRACTOlder adults have become more dependent on using technologies to connect and communicate with others across the globe. This insight has since become more evident with the COVID-19 pandemic. While many older adults have increased their skills with these technologies, many more lack the necessary knowledge and skillset to effectively benefit from their use. To provide them with an accessible and older adult friendly digital training, in the summer of 2021, we pilot tested a brief 4-week digital literacy program to train older adults on key skills related to navigating their computer such as sending e-mails or traversing the web, etc. A convenience sample of 5 older adults volunteered for this brief intervention study in which they were to participate in a 1.5-hour intervention twice a week, for 4 weeks (8 total sessions). Topics varied from class to class. Results suggest that average computer proficiency scores were higher post intervention compared to pre-intervention. Additionally, post intervention scores were higher on computer basics, communication, and Internet subscales. All sessions were typically completed within the proposed time. The main technical issues identified were related to connecting to the digital sessions as well as navigating application interfaces across devices (i.e., differences in icons or application names between iOS and Android powered devices). Overall, these findings would suggest that older adults may be able to quickly gain digital literacy skills in a short period of time, provided that they are well supported. Disclosure statementSR received a clinician-investigator award from the Fonds de Recherche Québec Santé (FRQS) and owns shares in AIfred Health. HS has a CIHR fellowship award and an AGE-WELL award. The other coauthors have no other conflicts of interest to declare.Author contributionsConceptualization and methodology: KE, JG, SE; analysis and data curation: SE; draft preparation, writing and editing: SE, JG; supervision, project administration and funding acquisition: SR, JG, SE; substantial contribution to the critical review, commentary, and revision of the manuscript: KE, SNB, SR, HS. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.Additional informationFundingSources of funding for this project: CIHR [Grant # PJ8-169696]; CIHR [Grant # PJT-175191]; FRQS - [Grant # 2022-VIAP-308195]; JGH Foundation.