Purchasing and Using Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS): how decisions are made by community-dwelling seniors in Canada

Table 1 Socio-demographic characteristics of PERS subscribers

Characteristic	Focus groups (N = 5)	Interviews (N = 10)
No. participants	n = 20	n = 10
Mean age (years)	88.4 (SD ± 5.20)	88.9 (SD ± 3.60)
Gender
Male	20 % (n = 4)	-
Female	80 % (n = 16)	100 % (n = 10)
Marital status
Single	5 % (n = 1)	10 % (n = 1)
Widowed	85 % (n=17)	80 % (n = 8)
Married	5 % (n = 1)	-
Separated	-	-
Divorced	5 % (n = 1)	-
Common-law	-	-
Education
Public school	30 % (n = 6)	10 % (n = 1)
High school	45 % (n = 9)	30 % (n = 3)
College (diploma)	10 % (n = 2)	30 % (n = 3)
University (Bachelors)	5 % (n = 1)	10 % (n = 1)
University (Masters)	5 % (n = 1)	-
University (PhD/MD)	-	-
Other education	5 % (n = 1)	20 % (n = 2)
Perceived Health^a
Excellent	5 % (n = 1)	10 % (n = 1)
Very good	20 % (n = 4)	30 % (n = 3)
Good	50 % (n = 10)	40 % (n = 4)
Fair	25 % (n = 5)	20 % (n = 2)
Poor	-	-
Mean Self-Rated Independence^b
Completely independent	10 % (n = 2)	20 % (n = 2)
Very independent	25 % (n = 5)	70 % (n = 7)
Somewhat independent	25 % (n = 5)	10 % (n = 1)
Very little independence	5 % (n = 1)	-
Not at all independent	-	-

^aSelf-rated health ranged from 1(excellent) to 5 (poor)
^bSelf-rated independence ranged from 1 (completely independent) to 5 (not at all independent)
Not all numbers add up to 100 % because of non-responders in some categories

ISSN: 1471-2318