Value in the Lived Experience of Wearable Diabetes Technology for Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes and their Caregivers

Radu, Simona (2024). Value in the Lived Experience of Wearable Diabetes Technology for Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes and their Caregivers. PhD thesis The Open University.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.00098893

Abstract

The service literature progressively recognises value as a key research priority (Ostrom et al., 2015). Nevertheless, despite considerable discussion on this topic, value understanding remains fragmented, with limited impetus for value in the experience, particularly in the context of technology. Given the accelerated development of digitalised healthcare, it is important to understand the customer experience with technology, especially for chronic illnesses requiring continuous engagement with monitoring and treatment devices. The key objective of this study was to understand the value in the lived experience of wearable diabetes technology (WDT) for adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1D) and caregivers.

This project is situated within service research and adopts a phenomenological approach to the dynamic and subjective nature of value. It considers essential aspects of human experience for a holistic understanding of this intricate phenomenon (Helkkula et al., 2012; Heinonen et al., 2013). It commenced with an advisory phase that sought the contribution of adolescents and caregivers with regard to the central topic and various aspects of research design. The main study included 24 semi-structured online interviews with 14 adolescents and 10 caregivers, as well as diaries collected from 6 adolescents. Data analysis followed van Manen’s (1990, 2014) recommendations and employed the five phenomenological lifeworld dimensions (i.e., embodiment, sociality, spatiality, temporality, and materiality) as an interpretative and a sensitising lens for analysis and writing.

The findings of this study suggest that the experience of value does not materialise in a vacuum but is embedded in the customer’s life. Value in the experience is phenomenologically lived in interaction with their idiosyncratic world, which includes the material technology as well as embodied, social, temporal, physical, and normative aspects of their lifeworld. This insight provides a theoretical contribution to service research by expanding the understanding of value in the experience using van Manen’s (2014) lifeworld dimensions. It offers an integrated understanding of the customer’s synergetic experience with technology within a transformative healthcare context. The empirical contribution of this study stems from the phenomenological, participatory, and co-creative methodological approach.

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