Supporting Assistive Technology Outreach in Nonmetro Communities

Importance: Assistive technology is a key intervention used in occupational therapy practice, however there is limited access to it in nonmetro communities. Objective: To assess the relevancy and usability of an outreach toolkit. Design: Mixed-methods program development and evaluation conducted over 3 months. Data collected using surveys. Setting: Community, government program. Participants: 18 years or older, staff at Tools For Life or an attendee at an implementation activity, able to read English, and willing and able to provide informed consent, recruited voluntarily via convenience and snowball sampling. Intervention: Either attendance at a 1-hour implementation event, or completion of 7 usability tasks simulating a real-life implementation scenario. Outcomes and Measures: Content relevancy and toolkit usability. Results: 18 adult participants for assessing relevancy, results showed high relevance with good reliability among respondents. 1 adult participant for assessing usability, results showed excellent usability with minor concerns over content organization. Conclusions and Relevance: This study showed that the developed toolkit is a feasible option for increasing assistive technology awareness for the site. Occupational therapists should strive for improving assistive technology accessibility in all regions, as it can be a significant factor in people’s independence and safety in their occupations. Plain-Language Summary: This project aimed to improve access and awareness of assistive technology (AT), which are tools people use to complete everyday tasks, in nonmetro parts of Georgia. Many people there do not know about AT. A toolkit was developed to address this. It was designed to help Georgia’s AT Act Program, Tools For Life, build relationships with organizations in nonmetro areas to increase awareness about AT. Researchers tested the toolkit and found that people in nonmetro areas thought the content was relevant to their needs, and that staff at Tools For Life found the toolkit easy to use. This means the toolkit is a valuable resource for improving access to AT in nonmetro Georgia. For occupational therapy, this project shows how important it is to educate people and build relationships with local organizations that way they can use AT, and in turn be more independent and safe in their daily activities.