Journal
QUALITATIVE HEALTH RESEARCH
Volume 26, Issue 10, Pages 1424-1433Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/1049732315586550
Keywords
assisted personal body care; assistive technology; constructivism; Denmark; elder care; Foucault; health technology assessment; implementation; nursing; robot bathtub; secondary qualitative analysis
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Funding
- municipality of Horsens
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Assistive technologies are often considered to be passive tools implemented in targeted processes. Our previous study of the implementation of the robot bathtub in a Danish elder center suggested that purposeful rationality was not the only issue at stake. To further explore this, we conducted a constructivist secondary qualitative analysis. Data included interviews, participant observations, working documents, and media coverage. The analysis was carried out in two phases and revealed that the bathing of the older people was constructed as a problem that could be offensive to the users' integrity, damaging to their well-being, and physically strenuous for the staff. The older users and the nursing staff were constructed as problem carriers. We conclude that technological solutions are not merely neutral and beneficial solutions to existing problems, but are rather part of strategic games contributing to the construction of the very problems they seek to solve.
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