Abstract:

Background:
Refugee older adults experience inequitable access to healthcare services in their host country. Recent popularity in social media and advancements in technology have heightened digital literacy among older adults, which in turn have created opportunities for older refugees to seek healthcare information and resources globally through the internet and social media, which may increase their engagement in transnational healthcare practices.

Objectives:
We aimed to understand the range and nature of evidence on social media use among refugee older adults in the context of their engagement in transnational healthcare practices. We paid particular attention to how refugee older adults use social media for travel and non-travel based transnational health related information, education, prevention and promotion, diagnosis, and treatment.

Methods:
The scoping review was guided by the PRISMA-ScR checklist and the Joanna Briggs Institute method. We searched six bibliographic databases: Medline, Embase, CINAHL, PsychInfo, Scopus, SocIndex. Level 1 screening included reviewing titles and abstracts of 1235 articles by two independent screeners. Level 2 screening entailed full text screening by two independent reviewers. Disagreements related to inclusion/exclusion of articles were resolved by a third reviewer. Reference lists of all included articles were also searched. All data were extracted from the included articles using DistillerSR software.

Results:
Emerging results show that many older adult refugees have access to a mobile phone and use the internet frequently; yet there are differences in digital literacy in this population. Internet-based technologies, like social media, are growing in importance as tools to disseminate health related information to refugee older adults. Healthcare organizations disseminating evidence via social media must consider the quality of the evidence and the potential for older adult refugees to access misinformation.

Conclusions and Implications:
The results of this review will offer insights into how refugee older adults use social media to engage in transnational healthcare practices, which will help shape future research, program and service delivery, and policy changes, to facilitate refugee older adults’ use and engagement with local healthcare services and information.

Keywords:

Social media, digital literacy, internet use, refugees, older adults, healthcare.