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Abstract

From early in the COVID-19 pandemic, community day-care centres sought to find ways to deliver services remotely using digital tools, but older people are often presumed resistant to using digital technologies. This study sought to examine the delivery of community day-care services at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify the willingness of older service users to participate in day-care activities remotely while in-person services were unavailable. Community day-care services are essential to ensuring social participation and overall wellbeing for many older people who remain living at home. On March 16th, 2020, like many other services, community day-care in Ireland was paused to reduce Coronavirus transmission among this at-risk cohort. This paper presents quantitative findings from a survey, conducted in September 2020 by a community day-care service in a large town in Ireland, examining pre-COVID-19 service engagement and willingness of day-care members (n=81) to participate in online delivery of social activities. Descriptive analysis of responses, using SPSS software, shows older people were willing to use digital interventions to engage with day-care activities, where access to devices was assured and if support was provided to help them overcome technology-related challenges. Differences between groups of day-care service users were identified. Findings from this research suggest opportunities exist to increase engagement with day-care services through remotely delivered activities both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

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