Context of use of home use medical devices: A study on the identification of contextual factors of cpap devices

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mimarlık Fakültesi, Endüstriyel Tasarım Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2014

Öğrenci: MERVE AYDIN

Danışman: NAZ AYŞE GÜZİDE Z. BÖREKÇİ

Özet:

World population is getting older and technology is advancing rapidly over the last decades. At the intersection of these changes, there is a growing desire to provide more effective healthcare to the elder population with the help of improving technology. Medical devices have started to become miniaturized, simplified and affordable enough to find their way out of hospitals into homes. This situation has affected the design considerations on medical devices due to the change of the user groups and product environments. Therefore, there appears to be a need for design research on the context of use for such devices. This study explores the contextual factors of the home environment affecting the usage of home use medical devices. In-depth interviews are conducted with eight home use CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) device users. The interviews questioned the habits and expectations of the users, the features of the devices, the tasks involved in their usage, and how the physical and social environments of the users are affecting the usage of the device. The findings indicate that there are eight major themes under which the factors are gathered. These are, factors related to user characteristics, vi problems, motivating factors, tasks, storage and environment, assistance, factors affecting purchase decisions, and preferences.