TY - JOUR
T1 - Coaching through technology
T2 - A systematic review into efficacy and effectiveness for the ageing population
AU - Bevilacqua, Roberta
AU - Casaccia, Sara
AU - Cortellessa, Gabriella
AU - Astell, Arlene
AU - Lattanzio, Fabrizia
AU - Corsonello, Andrea
AU - D’ascoli, Paola
AU - Paolini, Susy
AU - Di Rosa, Mirko
AU - Rossi, Lorena
AU - Maranesi, Elvira
N1 - Funding Information:
The work described was supported by the Resilien-T project “Technology driven self-management for building resilience among people with early stage cognitive impairment”, funded by the AAL Joint Programme under Grant agreement AAL-2018-11. For the IRCCS INRCA the project was co-funded by the Italian Ministry of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2020/8/2
Y1 - 2020/8/2
N2 - Background: Despite the evidence on the positive role of self-management, the adoption of health coaching strategies for older people is still limited. To address these gaps, recent efforts have been made in the ICT sector in order to develop systems for delivering coaching and overcoming barriers relating to scarcity of resources. The aim of this review is to examine the efficacy of personal health coaching systems for older adults using digital virtual agents. Methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted in December 2019 analyzing manuscripts from four databases over the last 10 years. Nine papers were included. Results: Despite the low number of studies, there was evidence that technology-integrated interventions can deliver benefits for health over usual care. However, the review raises important questions about how to maintain benefits and permanence of behavior change produced by short-term interventions. Conclusion: These systems offer a potential tool to reduce costs, minimize therapist burden and training, and expand the range of clients who can benefit from them. It is desirable that in the future the number of studies will grow, considering other aspects such as the role of the virtual coaches’ characteristics, social-presence, empathy, usability, and health literacy.
AB - Background: Despite the evidence on the positive role of self-management, the adoption of health coaching strategies for older people is still limited. To address these gaps, recent efforts have been made in the ICT sector in order to develop systems for delivering coaching and overcoming barriers relating to scarcity of resources. The aim of this review is to examine the efficacy of personal health coaching systems for older adults using digital virtual agents. Methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted in December 2019 analyzing manuscripts from four databases over the last 10 years. Nine papers were included. Results: Despite the low number of studies, there was evidence that technology-integrated interventions can deliver benefits for health over usual care. However, the review raises important questions about how to maintain benefits and permanence of behavior change produced by short-term interventions. Conclusion: These systems offer a potential tool to reduce costs, minimize therapist burden and training, and expand the range of clients who can benefit from them. It is desirable that in the future the number of studies will grow, considering other aspects such as the role of the virtual coaches’ characteristics, social-presence, empathy, usability, and health literacy.
KW - Avatar
KW - Coaching
KW - Health literacy
KW - Intrinsic Capacity
KW - Older people
KW - Robot
KW - Self-management
KW - Technology-integrated intervention
KW - Virtual agent
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85089541367&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/ijerph17165930
DO - 10.3390/ijerph17165930
M3 - Review article
C2 - 32824169
AN - SCOPUS:85089541367
SN - 1661-7827
VL - 17
SP - 1
EP - 14
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
IS - 16
M1 - 5930
ER -
