Article

This exploratory study examined the relationships between consumers'
involvement in the pre-purchase decision-making process,
their perceptions of
feeling informed, and their degree of being satisfied with and use of assistive
technology (AT). Does consumer information and participation in decision-making
process lead to improved satisfaction and use of AT? METHOD: A link to an
project-specific web-based survey, sent to several online disability forums and
independent living centres, resulted in a sample of 145 individuals with a range
of disabilities, who used a range of AT and were geographically dispersed.
RESULTS: There is a significant relationship between being feeling informed and
being satisfied with an AT device (F(13,278) = 27.79, p = 0.000). Feeling that
personal needs were not assessed led to lower satisfaction (beta = -0.15, p <
0.07), while feeling informed resulted from a number of different factors. Lack
of consumer involvement in the pre-purchase decision-making process led to
somewhat greater rates of abandonment in some categories of AT (some with small
n's). CONCLUSIONS: Talking with other users, auditioning the device and searching
the Internet are important ways for consumers to gather information. When
consumers feel informed, they are more likely to be satisfied with the AT and retain it.

Langue : ANGLAIS