Intergenerational RelationsNCT05135819
Cyber School for Grandparents: an Intergenerational Educational Program
A study testing Cyber School for Grandparents in people with Intergenerational Relations and Aging Well, run by Antonio Guaita, MD at 1 site in Italy.
Trial summary
Social participation and social relationships are relevant aspects of older adult's psychosocial well-being. In this regard, specific interest is devoted to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) which enable to connect people and to support their social participation. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Any ageHealthy volunteers can take part
- Conditions the study is for
- Intergenerational Relations, Aging Well
- What is being tested?
- Cyber School for Grandparents
- Type of treatment
- Lifestyle or therapy programme
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 120 participants
- Where
- 1 siteItaly
- Study dates
- 14 Oct 2021to 7 Jun 2022
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- None posted in the registry
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages Any age
- All sexes
- Healthy volunteers accepted
- Child, Adult, Older adult
Who may be able to join
- For students: attending one of the 3 classes involved in the project
- For seniors: be a grandparents of the students involved and willing to participate in the initiative.
- No specific inclusion criteria were set regarding age, ICT proficiency, socioeconomic, health or mobility status of the grandparents, since the program was expressly designed to be as inclusive and personalized as possible, in order to favor a wide participation.
- However, context information on these relevant aspects will be collected and reported, since they are well-known factors affecting technology use among older adults.
Who cannot join
None listed.
Trial locations and contacts
1 site in 1 country.
About this study
Official title: Cyber School for Grandparents: an Intergenerational Educational Program to Bridge the Digital Divide
Social participation and social relationships are relevant aspects of older adult's psychosocial well-being. In this regard, specific interest is devoted to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) which enable to connect people and to support their social participation.
Despite the number of older Internet users constantly increased in the last decades, older adults still display reduced Internet access compared to younger generations. Italian elderly people are severely penalized by this "gray digital divide". The pandemia due to COVID-19 spread has exasperated the situation, leading to the paradox of having people putatively most beneficent of use as those most excluded, due to scanty of competencies and of suitable and agreeable learning occasions.
Read more
The Cyber School for Grandparents is an innovative intergenerational educational program aimed to bridge the digital divide by training secondary school students (aged 15-17 years) to become cyber tutors for their grandparents.
The intervention will take place during the 2021/2022 school year, as part of the curricular activities of 3 classes at the local Human Science High School. The intervention was designed to be personalized and inclusive, in order to meet the need of each student-senior dyad, regardless of their starting digital skills and attitudes toward technology.
The primary aim of the present mixed-method feasibility study is to qualitatively evaluate students' participation and learning throughout the course and to measure grandparents' pre-post changes in mobile device actual use, self-reported proficiency and attitudes.
Secondly, eventual pre-post changes on aging stereotypes and psychosocial well-being of the participants will be explored.
Read the detailed description
Systematic reviews of qualitative studies on older adults ICT users highlighted that the principal drives for use were the desire to keep in touch with family and friends and to enter into intergenerational communication, whereas main obstacles are their distrust in terms of perceived utility, privacy concerns as well as technical difficulties. As regards the learning context, old persons prefer to rely on their own social network to acquire digital competence and spontaneously refer to their younger family members that may act as "warm" experts on ICT use. ICT use among older adults may thus be favored by properly designed educational interventions, focused on their interests, needs and concerns about technology.
The educational program will be delivered to 3 classes of the local Human Science High School. Students will be asked to involve at least one grandparent willing to participate in the initiative. To assure the active participation of the entire classes, if some students were not able to involve any grandparent, community-dwelling older adults would be enrolled among those participating in ongoing studies at the Golgi Cenci Foundation.
Compared to the previously reported intergenerational programs on ICT use, the present initiative shows relevant innovative features: the educational lessons will be embedded in the students school program instead of being offered on a volunteering basis, the students will independently plan and implement the cyber sessions for their grandparents outside the school as extracurricular activities and, whenever possible, the program will involve familial dyads.
The course is composed of 3 different modules: theory (2 lessons), method (2 lessons) and practice (6 lessons). Theoretical lessons will deal with the aging process and its effect on cognition and learning process, issues and peculiarities of older adults ICT use, andragogy and strategies to favor the learning process of new skills.
During the methodological lessons, students will be instructed on the importance of data collection for research purposes and on the specific features and administration modalities of the assessment tools to be compiled by their grandparents.
In the practical module, students will be guided in the implementation of the one-to-one cyber sessions for their grandparents, which will be then conducted independently during extracurricular hours and customized according to the needs and interests of each senior involved.
Pre-post outcome measures will be remotely collected both for students and for seniors. Assessment will be performed through online surveys shared within the web-based platform adopted by the school to perform remote lessons during the COVID-19 pandemic (Google Classroom). All the instruments selected are suitable for self-compiling both by young students and older adults. The students will help and supervise grandparents to manage possible technical and/or sensory difficulties with the online compiling procedure.
Moreover, students will compile an online diary for each of the 4 practical modules, before the next group lesson scheduled, comprising both an activity and a learning log. The activity log consists of structured questions on the number, frequency, duration, content and modality (in-person or remotely) of the cyber sessions performed with the senior mentee. The learning log will comprise broad guiding questions to reflect on the learning process favoured by the activities and to record the student's observations.
Finally, at the end of the experience, students and grandparents satisfaction and opinion on the experience will be assessed using a questionnaire with both close-ended and open-ended questions.
- Conditions
- Intergenerational Relations, Aging Well
- Being tested
- Cyber School for Grandparents
- Keywords
- Educational intervention, Digital divide, Social inclusion, Technology use, Old adults, Intergenerational relations, Learning
- Medical subject headings
- Social Inclusion
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Cyber School for GrandparentsBehavioural
Educational program for secondary school students to become cyber tutors for their grandparents or for senior citizens, who are interested to learn new digital use and skills.
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Intergenerational educational program | Experimental | Not described Receives: Behavioral: Cyber School for Grandparents |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Digital literacy (seniors)
Mobile Device Proficiency Questionnaire Short Form (MDPQ-SF): self report, 16 items on the 5 dimensions of the European digital competence framework evaluated on a 5-point Likert scale (range: 16-80)
Measured: 5 months
Attitude toward Internet use (seniors)
Attitude Toward Computer/Internet Use Questionnaire (ATCQ): self report, 15 items measuring 5 attitude dimensions (comfort, efficacy, interest) toward Internet use on a 5-point Likert scale (range: 15-75)
Measured: 5 months
Secondary outcomes (2)
Psychosocial well-being (students and seniors)
Mental Health Continuum Short Form (MHC-SF): self report, 14 item measuring 3 dimension of well-being (emotional, social, psychological) on a 6-point Likert scale (range: 0-70)
Measured: 6 months
Aging stereotype (students)
Aging semantic differential: 9 pairs of polar opposite adjectives on aging individuals, to rate the intensity and direction of judgement from 0 to 7.
Measured: 6 months
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted26 Nov 2021
- Study start14 Oct 2021
- Primary completion7 Jun 2022
- Study completion7 Jun 2022
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Publications (7)Papers the sponsor has linked to this study.
- Other trials for Intergenerational RelationsStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Prevention
- Allocation
- Not applicable
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Enrolment
- 120 participants (actual)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- Antonio Guaita, MD
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- University of Milano Bicocca, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
- Responsible party
- Sponsor-investigator, Antonio Guaita, MD, Fondazione Golgi Cenci
- Investigators
- Elena Rolandi, MSc, Principal investigator, Fondazione Golgi Cenci
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT05135819
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- 04
- Status last verified
- Sep 2023
- First submitted
- 2 Nov 2021
- Last updated
- 13 Sep 2023
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- No
Publications
Nef T, Ganea RL, Muri RM, Mosimann UP. Social networking sites and older users - a systematic review. Int Psychogeriatr. 2013 Jul;25(7):1041-53. doi: 10.1017/S1041610213000355. Epub 2013 Apr 4.
PubMed 23552297Ibarra F, Baez M, Cernuzzi L, Casati F. A Systematic Review on Technology-Supported Interventions to Improve Old-Age Social Wellbeing: Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Connectedness. J Healthc Eng. 2020 Jul 12;2020:2036842. doi: 10.1155/2020/2036842. eCollection 2020.
PubMed 32765823Forsman AK, Nordmyr J, Matosevic T, Park AL, Wahlbeck K, McDaid D. Promoting mental wellbeing among older people: technology-based interventions. Health Promot Int. 2018 Dec 1;33(6):1042-1054. doi: 10.1093/heapro/dax047.
PubMed 28973587Roque NA, Boot WR. A New Tool for Assessing Mobile Device Proficiency in Older Adults: The Mobile Device Proficiency Questionnaire. J Appl Gerontol. 2018 Feb;37(2):131-156. doi: 10.1177/0733464816642582. Epub 2016 Apr 11.
PubMed 27255686Rolandi E, Vaccaro R, Abbondanza S, Casanova G, Pettinato L, Colombo M, Guaita A. Loneliness and Social Engagement in Older Adults Based in Lombardy during the COVID-19 Lockdown: The Long-Term Effects of a Course on Social Networking Sites Use. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Oct 28;17(21):7912. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17217912.
PubMed 33126634Jay GM, Willis SL. Influence of direct computer experience on older adults' attitudes toward computers. J Gerontol. 1992 Jul;47(4):P250-7. doi: 10.1093/geronj/47.4.p250.
PubMed 1624702Keyes CL. The mental health continuum: from languishing to flourishing in life. J Health Soc Behav. 2002 Jun;43(2):207-22.
PubMed 12096700
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 13 Sep 2023. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Cyber School for Grandparents: an Intergenerational Educational Program to Bridge the Digital Divide
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT05135819
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- 04
- Conditions
- Intergenerational Relations, Aging Well
- Keywords
- Educational intervention, Digital divide, Social inclusion, Technology use, Old adults, Intergenerational relations, Learning
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Enrolment
- 120 participants (actual)
- Lead sponsor
- Antonio Guaita, MDUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- University of Milano Bicocca, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
- Study start
- 14 Oct 2021 (actual)
- Primary completion
- 7 Jun 2022 (actual)
- Study completion
- 7 Jun 2022 (actual)
- First posted
- 26 Nov 2021 (actual)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
Social participation and social relationships are relevant aspects of older adult's psychosocial well-being. In this regard, specific interest is devoted to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) which enable to connect people and to support their social participation.
Despite the number of older Internet users constantly increased in the last decades, older adults still display reduced Internet access compared to younger generations. Italian elderly people are severely penalized by this "gray digital divide". The pandemia due to COVID-19 spread has exasperated the situation, leading to the paradox of having people putatively most beneficent of use as those most excluded, due to scanty of competencies and of suitable and agreeable learning occasions.
The Cyber School for Grandparents is an innovative intergenerational educational program aimed to bridge the digital divide by training secondary school students (aged 15-17 years) to become cyber tutors for their grandparents.
The intervention will take place during the 2021/2022 school year, as part of the curricular activities of 3 classes at the local Human Science High School. The intervention was designed to be personalized and inclusive, in order to meet the need of each student-senior dyad, regardless of their starting digital skills and attitudes toward technology.
The primary aim of the present mixed-method feasibility study is to qualitatively evaluate students' participation and learning throughout the course and to measure grandparents' pre-post changes in mobile device actual use, self-reported proficiency and attitudes.
Secondly, eventual pre-post changes on aging stereotypes and psychosocial well-being of the participants will be explored.
Detailed description
Systematic reviews of qualitative studies on older adults ICT users highlighted that the principal drives for use were the desire to keep in touch with family and friends and to enter into intergenerational communication, whereas main obstacles are their distrust in terms of perceived utility, privacy concerns as well as technical difficulties. As regards the learning context, old persons prefer to rely on their own social network to acquire digital competence and spontaneously refer to their younger family members that may act as "warm" experts on ICT use. ICT use among older adults may thus be favored by properly designed educational interventions, focused on their interests, needs and concerns about technology.
The educational program will be delivered to 3 classes of the local Human Science High School. Students will be asked to involve at least one grandparent willing to participate in the initiative. To assure the active participation of the entire classes, if some students were not able to involve any grandparent, community-dwelling older adults would be enrolled among those participating in ongoing studies at the Golgi Cenci Foundation.
Compared to the previously reported intergenerational programs on ICT use, the present initiative shows relevant innovative features: the educational lessons will be embedded in the students school program instead of being offered on a volunteering basis, the students will independently plan and implement the cyber sessions for their grandparents outside the school as extracurricular activities and, whenever possible, the program will involve familial dyads.
The course is composed of 3 different modules: theory (2 lessons), method (2 lessons) and practice (6 lessons). Theoretical lessons will deal with the aging process and its effect on cognition and learning process, issues and peculiarities of older adults ICT use, andragogy and strategies to favor the learning process of new skills.
During the methodological lessons, students will be instructed on the importance of data collection for research purposes and on the specific features and administration modalities of the assessment tools to be compiled by their grandparents.
In the practical module, students will be guided in the implementation of the one-to-one cyber sessions for their grandparents, which will be then conducted independently during extracurricular hours and customized according to the needs and interests of each senior involved.
Pre-post outcome measures will be remotely collected both for students and for seniors. Assessment will be performed through online surveys shared within the web-based platform adopted by the school to perform remote lessons during the COVID-19 pandemic (Google Classroom). All the instruments selected are suitable for self-compiling both by young students and older adults. The students will help and supervise grandparents to manage possible technical and/or sensory difficulties with the online compiling procedure.
Moreover, students will compile an online diary for each of the 4 practical modules, before the next group lesson scheduled, comprising both an activity and a learning log. The activity log consists of structured questions on the number, frequency, duration, content and modality (in-person or remotely) of the cyber sessions performed with the senior mentee. The learning log will comprise broad guiding questions to reflect on the learning process favoured by the activities and to record the student's observations.
Finally, at the end of the experience, students and grandparents satisfaction and opinion on the experience will be assessed using a questionnaire with both close-ended and open-ended questions.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Prevention
- Allocation
- Not applicable
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Number of arms
- 1
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Intergenerational educational program | Experimental | Behavioral: Cyber School for Grandparents |
Who may qualify
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepted
- Age groups
- Child, Adult, Older adult
Key inclusion criteria (4 listed)
- For students: attending one of the 3 classes involved in the project
- For seniors: be a grandparents of the students involved and willing to participate in the initiative.
- No specific inclusion criteria were set regarding age, ICT proficiency, socioeconomic, health or mobility status of the grandparents, since the program was expressly designed to be as inclusive and personalized as possible, in order to favor a wide participation.
- However, context information on these relevant aspects will be collected and reported, since they are well-known factors affecting technology use among older adults.
Key exclusion criteria (0 listed)
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| Cyber School for GrandparentsEducational program for secondary school students to become cyber tutors for their grandparents or for senior citizens, who are interested to learn new digital use and skills. | Behavioural | Intergenerational educational program |
Primary outcome
Digital literacy (seniors)
Time frame: 5 months
Mobile Device Proficiency Questionnaire Short Form (MDPQ-SF): self report, 16 items on the 5 dimensions of the European digital competence framework evaluated on a 5-point Likert scale (range: 16-80)
Attitude toward Internet use (seniors)
Time frame: 5 months
Attitude Toward Computer/Internet Use Questionnaire (ATCQ): self report, 15 items measuring 5 attitude dimensions (comfort, efficacy, interest) toward Internet use on a 5-point Likert scale (range: 15-75)
2 secondary outcomes
Psychosocial well-being (students and seniors)
Time frame: 6 months
Aging stereotype (students)
Time frame: 6 months
Results and safety
The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 13 Sep 2023.
- Background: PubMed 23552297Nef T, Ganea RL, Muri RM, Mosimann UP. Social networking sites and older users - a systematic review. Int Psychogeriatr. 2013 Jul;25(7):1041-53. doi: 10.1017/S1041610213000355. Epub 2013 Apr 4.
- Background: PubMed 32765823Ibarra F, Baez M, Cernuzzi L, Casati F. A Systematic Review on Technology-Supported Interventions to Improve Old-Age Social Wellbeing: Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Connectedness. J Healthc Eng. 2020 Jul 12;2020:2036842. doi: 10.1155/2020/2036842. eCollection 2020.
- Background: PubMed 28973587Forsman AK, Nordmyr J, Matosevic T, Park AL, Wahlbeck K, McDaid D. Promoting mental wellbeing among older people: technology-based interventions. Health Promot Int. 2018 Dec 1;33(6):1042-1054. doi: 10.1093/heapro/dax047.
- Background: PubMed 27255686Roque NA, Boot WR. A New Tool for Assessing Mobile Device Proficiency in Older Adults: The Mobile Device Proficiency Questionnaire. J Appl Gerontol. 2018 Feb;37(2):131-156. doi: 10.1177/0733464816642582. Epub 2016 Apr 11.
- Background: PubMed 33126634Rolandi E, Vaccaro R, Abbondanza S, Casanova G, Pettinato L, Colombo M, Guaita A. Loneliness and Social Engagement in Older Adults Based in Lombardy during the COVID-19 Lockdown: The Long-Term Effects of a Course on Social Networking Sites Use. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Oct 28;17(21):7912. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17217912.
- Background: PubMed 1624702Jay GM, Willis SL. Influence of direct computer experience on older adults' attitudes toward computers. J Gerontol. 1992 Jul;47(4):P250-7. doi: 10.1093/geronj/47.4.p250.
- Background: PubMed 12096700Keyes CL. The mental health continuum: from languishing to flourishing in life. J Health Soc Behav. 2002 Jun;43(2):207-22.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: No
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Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part. This study is not recruiting at the moment.
Elena Rolandi, MSc principal investigator
Fondazione Golgi Cenci
1 site in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing Cyber School for Grandparents in people with Intergenerational Relations and Aging Well, run by Antonio Guaita, MD at 1 site in Italy.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 4 inclusion and 0 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 13 Sep 2023. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 1 site in Italy. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Digital literacy (seniors) (time frame: 5 months). The study lists 2 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT05135819, which also lists 7 linked publications.
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 13 Sep 2023.