Feasibility of Increasing Social Participation for Older Adults with Disabilities

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to adapt the personalized citizen assistance for social participation (APIC; French acronym for Accompagnement-citoyen personnalisé d’intégration communautaire) approach for older adults with disabilities and explore its feasibility. A qualitative clinical research design, including interviews, was used with 19 older adults with disabilities. They met with their nonprofessional attendant (citizen supervised by the research team) about 20 times and 16 of them completed the APIC. Personal facilitators and barriers to physical, intellectual, manual, artistic and social interaction experiences were related to health and sensory, motor or behavioral capabilities, including psychological and emotional availability. Results also highlighted environmental facilitators (e.g., paratransit, social support) and barriers (e.g. inaccessibility, weather, over-protective family). The APIC represents new opportunities for older adults to achieve community integration and enhance their social life and resources, while confirming the feasibility of addressing the global “aging well” priority.

KEYWORDS:

• Community participation
• Feasibility
• Social activities
• Social integration
• Social isolation

Acknowledgments

The researchers wish to thank Jade Bilodeau, Sarah Blain, Yves Couturier, Johanne Desrosiers, Éliane Giasson-Leblanc, Luc Grégoire, Nadine Larivière, Marie-Anick Lussier, Modou Sene, Andrée Sévigny, André Tourigny and all the attendants who contributed to the study, as well as the participants for sharing their time and life experiences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Availability of data and materials

Data are available upon request to the corresponding author.

Writing assistance

All authors made a substantial contribution to the study. ML and HL did the conception and design, which were reviewed by all authors. JLB, ML and JL did the data analysis and interpretation, with input from all authors. With the help of JLB and JL, ML drafted the article, all authors revised it critically for important intellectual content and approved the version to be published.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR; grant #284179). Free bus tokens were kindly provided by the Sherbrooke Transit Corporation. At the time of the study, Mélanie Levasseur was a Fonds de la recherche du Québec Santé (FRQS) Junior 1 Researcher (grant #26815) and CIHR New Investigator (salary award #360880, 2017-2022) and she is now a FRQS Senior Researcher (#298996; 2021-2025).