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Improving outcomes for older retired drivers: The UQDRIVE program
Author(s) -
Liddle Jacki,
McKenna Kryss,
Bartlett Helen
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
australian occupational therapy journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.595
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1440-1630
pISSN - 0045-0766
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1630.2006.00614.x
Subject(s) - occupational therapy , rehabilitation , citation , officer , psychology , gerontology , medicine , library science , medical education , sociology , history , physical therapy , psychiatry , computer science , archaeology
Continuation or loss of the driving role can impact on older people, their families and health professionals. Although there may be safety concerns associated with continued driving in the presence of specific medical conditions and the ageing process (e.g. Fildes, 2004), driving cessation can result in unfavourable outcomes that cannot be explained by health, age or sociodemographic factors. These may include increased depressive symptomatology (Fonda, Wallace & Herzog, 2001; Marottoli et al., 1997), decreased community engagement (Marottoli et al., 2000), isolation, and safety risks associated with alternative transport use (e.g. pedestrian fatalities) (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2001). Retirement from driving is a transition that can be important in occupational therapy practice with older people. Occupational therapists may be involved in the assessment and rehabilitation of older drivers’ performance, and in the management of role loss and change in older age (Liddle & McKenna, 2003). Older current and retired drivers, family members and health professionals report a lack of direction and support with how to manage driving cessation (Liddle & McKenna). While there is research about the effect of driving cessation on the older population, there have been few attempts to improve outcomes for older people who retire from driving. To develop an effective, research-based, client-centred method to help older people manage driving cessation, the perspectives of key people were investigated. In an initial qualitative study, 18 people (9 retired drivers, 3 family members and 6 health professionals) were interviewed. This was followed by a primarily quantitative study using structured interviews to further investigate these findings with 234 community-dwelling older people. Detailed descriptions of the methods and findings of these studies are available (Liddle, 2005; Liddle, Carlson, & McKenna, 2004; Liddle, McKenna, & Broome, 2005). An overview of the findings is provided in this paper to describe how the UQDRIVE (University of Queensland Driver Retirement Initiative) program was developed.