Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of Korean older adults using wearable healthcare devices, employing Giorgi’s (1985) descriptive phenomenological method to identify the essential structures and underlying meanings associated with their use.
Method: Twelve older adults aged 65 years and older, all of whom had experience using wearable healthcare devices, were selected through purposive and maximum variation sampling. Data were collected via semi-structured, in-depth interviews, which were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using Giorgi’s phenomenological method. This analysis included identifying meaning units, forming themes, and developing situational structure statements. To guarantee the reliability of the analysis, member checks were performed with participants, and the researcher's biases were set aside.
Results: The analysis revealed that the experiences of older adults with wearable healthcare devices unfolded in three stages: initial, everyday, and long-term/reflective use. Each stage contained core themes, including external recommendations and management, ambivalent everyday experiences, and long-term reflection with institutional expectations. In the initial stage, device use was often involuntarily initiated by family members, medical staff, or community programs. During everyday use, participants reported ambivalent feelings, such as reassurance versus anxiety, autonomy versus dependence, and concerns related to care and surveillance. In the long-term stage, experiences reflected accumulated physical and emotional fatigue, increased demands for institutional support, lifestyle changes, and the emergence of a “learned user identity.”
Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the experiences of older adults with wearable healthcare devices extend beyond individual technology acceptance and are influenced by relational and institutional contexts. While previous research has often relied on technology acceptance models (TAM) and quantitative frameworks, this study provides a more nuanced, phenomenological understanding of older adults’ lived experiences with wearable healthcare devices.