| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 復健科技輔具研究所 === 95 === Background: Numerous individuals with disabilities are not satisfied with their assistive devices and are not used appropriately. Previous report showed an average of about thirty percent of provided assistive devices were not used. If large number of assistive devices is not being used, then resources are not being spent efficiently. On the other hand, the problems of individuals with disabilities were not resolved appropriately. However, there are few studies in Taiwan focusing on this issue about the factors which lead to non-use. Purpose: To investigate the factors related to non-use of government-provided assistive devices which include personal mobility devices, beds and seat, back cushions and orthoses. Study design: An exploratory research design. Methods: A self-administering questionnaire investigates the factors related to non-use and which will be divided into three parts: personal, devices and environment factors. Individuals with disabilities who had received assistive devices which were provided by the government from five counties have been recruited in this study. Results: 249 valid questionnaires, 426 assistive devices were collected and divided into three categories, which are aids for personal mobility, beds and seat, back cushions and orthoses. There are 11.7% of assistive devices which were not used in total. According to univariate analysis, the factors related to non-use of aids for personal mobility are users’ location, level of disability, experience of usage, the expectation to the device, time of usage, government reimbursement, satisfaction with institutions which sell assistive devices, satisfaction with maintenance for the devices and environmental obstacles. As for orthoses category, the factors related to non-use are users’ intelligence and cognitive condition, expectation to the device, training and guidance of the devices, environmental obstacles and support from the people who live with users. Furthermore, based on binary logistic regression analysis, the dominant factors of non-used aids for personal mobility are users’ experience of usage, level of disability, maintenance for the devices and location, which can explain 46.6% of the variance of non-use of aids for personal mobility. Conclusion: Factors related to non-use of assistive devices will differ on the types of devices. As for personal mobility users, the factors which should be concerned are first time users, users with lower level of disability, users who are dissatisfied with maintenance for the devices and users in county 5. Assistive technology practitioners should take into account in order to improve the status of non-use of assistive devices.
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