Date of Award
7-31-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)
First Advisor
Amber Nelson, PsyD, Dissertation Chair
Second Advisor
Kathleen Gathercoal, PhD, Member
Third Advisor
Robert Weniger, PsyD, Member
Abstract
Digital technology plays a large role in our society and has for decades. Most recently, the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 jumpstarted more integrated use in daily living (Brem et al., 2021). The older adult population represents a minority of internet users; however, they are one of the fastest growing populations in their internet use (Gitlow, 2014) despite their hesitancy and related anxiety surrounding integration of technology into their daily lives. One facet of integration includes healthcare, particularly mental health and cognitive assessment. Cognitive assessments, also referred to as neuropsychological assessments, are particularly useful with older adult populations, as they can assist in identifying cognitive decline such as dementia. The current study aimed to explore the hypothesis that older adult populations will perform significantly lower on virtual administration of these neuropsychological assessments due to the hesitancy and subsequent anxiety surrounding technology use and comfort. From a sample of 40 older adults (20 male, 20 female) who were over the age of 65 years from the Oregon Yamhill County, the mean age was 74.2 years old, with a majority of participants identified as Caucasian (92.5%). All individuals were administered a virtual assessment battery including the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence: 2nd Edition-subtest form (Vocabulary and Matrix Reasoning), California Verbal Learning Test: 3rd Edition, FAS/Animals verbal fluency task, Clock drawing test, the Digit Span subtest from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale: 4th Edition, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 scale, and the Abbreviated Technology Anxiety Scale from Wilson et al. (2022) to assess for traits of anxiety specifically related to technology use. In addition to these, participants were asked to provide a subjective unit of distress score on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the most distressed after each assessment was administered. Results from this study indicated a significantly higher full-scale IQ from the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence: 2nd Edition in this population when compared with the normative population along with immediate memory for a word list from the California Verbal Learning Test: 3rd Edition . Further, the sample performed significantly higher on the Digit Span subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale: 4th Edition . Self-reports from the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 scale and Abbreviated Technology Anxiety Scale were not correlated with any of the virtually administered assessments. None of the assessments administered as part of this battery were significantly lower than the normative sample, suggesting that anxiety related to technology does not appear to significantly impact test performance. Results from this study suggest that teleneuropsychological assessments are comparative to in-person assessments and can be a beneficial tool in providing access to assessment services.
Recommended Citation
Henderson, Hannah, "Navigating Neuropsychology: Unraveling Anxiety’s Impact on Virtual Assessment with Older Adults" (2024). Doctor of Psychology (PsyD). 580.
https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/psyd/580
