title: Older people's attitudes toward interactive voice response systems.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Interactive voice response (IVR) systems are computer programs that interact with people to provide a number of services from business to healthcare. The healthcare applications are particularly relevant to older adults because they are important consumers of medical services. However, research has found that older adults can experience significant difficulties with IVR and have more negative attitudes toward the technology.
  
  
  METHODS
  Seniors' attitudes appear to be related to their most recent experiences with IVR systems. The objective of this study was to examine attitudes toward four commercial or governmental IVR systems and how these attitudes relate to participants' ability to interact with the technology in a sample of 185 community-dwelling older (>65-year-old) adults. We also examined the effects of several demographic factors on both success and attitudes toward automated systems.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found a significant positive correlation between IVR success and attitudes toward IVR. However, a large subset of our sample gave high ratings despite experiencing significant difficulties with the systems. These participants tended to have lower full scale IQ. No gender differences emerged in terms of attitudes and ability to interact with IVR systems.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results also indicated that older adults in our sample viewed the IVR interaction as particularly demanding on attention and concentration abilities.
authors.affiliation: 1 School of Psychology, University of Ottawa , Ottawa, Ontario, Canada .
authors.forename: Delyana Ivanova
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: France
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Aubé
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Talbot
authors.forename: Michèle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gagnon
authors.forename: Claude
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Messier
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001292:Attitude to Computers; D001331:Automation; D002170:Canada; D005260:Female; D006296:Health Services; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services; D008297:Male; D049250:Speech Recognition Software; D013689:Telephone; D014584:User-Computer Interface