Affect Seniors’ Rehabilitation Intentions

Older adults who have been hospitalized often are referred for rehabilitation services at discharge. Many of them don’t follow through. Researchers at Multimedia University Malaysia investigated why, dissecting the subsequent answer with the sophisticated statistical tweezers of structural equation modeling. What they found out about service credibility contradicts prior conclusions, which were stated about younger adults.
     Believing claims made by the rehabilitation provider and considering rehabilitation facility staff as competent contribute to service credibility. It seems service credibility would directly persuade the senior to follow rehabilitation instructions. This might be true for younger adults, but for older adults, the path is less direct. Here service credibility leads to trust and an emotional attachment to the rehabilitation facility, these two lead to the senior’s intention to recover, and a clear intention to recover leads to conscientious participation in the rehabilitation.
     The extra link regarding older adults is the intention to recover. We could assume that younger adults are always interested in recovering. But for older adults, there’s more of a tradeoff in benefits and costs. Rehabilitation activities like physical therapy and occupational therapy are taxing. Elderly clients might conclude the juice isn’t worth the squeeze in the face of the limited time they have left to live.
     This MMU Malaysia study indicates the most direct way to generate an intention to recover is to cultivate trust and an emotional attachment. The researchers inquired of their 400 seniors about the attractiveness of the facility, the ease of navigation within the facility, and other aspects of the servicescape. They asked about the level of cleanliness of the facility. These all had some impact on the intention to recover, but only indirectly through enhancing trust and an emotional attachment. The researchers suggest putting time into building personalized relationships with elderly rehabilitation clients.
     The researchers, along with others, say this doesn’t need to be limited to face-to-face visits. It could be schmoozing via social media. Any such schmoozing should be more than idle chatter. It should be addressed toward understanding problems presented by the shopper and then helping to resolve those problems. Some problems are strictly logistical, such as trouble reading rehabilitation instructions or devising a way to document progress. Other problems might require sustained effort and referrals to other professionals in order to result in a sufficient remedy.

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