Previously submitted to: JMIR Aging (no longer under consideration since Jan 29, 2024)
Date Submitted: Sep 29, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 29, 2022 - Nov 24, 2022
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
NOTE: This is an unreviewed Preprint
Warning: This is a unreviewed preprint (What is a preprint?). Readers are warned that the document has not been peer-reviewed by expert/patient reviewers or an academic editor, may contain misleading claims, and is likely to undergo changes before final publication, if accepted, or may have been rejected/withdrawn (a note "no longer under consideration" will appear above).
Peer review me: Readers with interest and expertise are encouraged to sign up as peer-reviewer, if the paper is within an open peer-review period (in this case, a "Peer Review Me" button to sign up as reviewer is displayed above). All preprints currently open for review are listed here. Outside of the formal open peer-review period we encourage you to tweet about the preprint.
Citation: Please cite this preprint only for review purposes or for grant applications and CVs (if you are the author).
Final version: If our system detects a final peer-reviewed "version of record" (VoR) published in any journal, a link to that VoR will appear below. Readers are then encourage to cite the VoR instead of this preprint.
Settings: If you are the author, you can login and change the preprint display settings, but the preprint URL/DOI is supposed to be stable and citable, so it should not be removed once posted.
Submit: To post your own preprint, simply submit to any JMIR journal, and choose the appropriate settings to expose your submitted version as preprint.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Designing a Social Robot to Support Older Adult Homecare: Qualitative Study of Testing Results
ABSTRACT
Background:
Social robots may be a solution to the growing number of older adults and thus the demand in homecare. Previous work shows good acceptability for robotic tools in homecare. The Guardian project associates a social robot, used by the senior, with an application to be used by caregivers.
Objective:
The objective of this testing phase was to assess whether the social robot and the Guardian system would be helpful and well accepted within the real conditions of a homecare environment.
Methods:
The Guardian system was tested in a real-life homecare environment during an early testing phase. Data was gathered through questionnaires and comments formulated by the participants. 30 participants were recruited across Italy, the Netherland and Switzerland: 10 older adults, 10 formal caregivers, and 10 informal caregivers. The collected data was then analyzed through thematic and qualitative method.
Results:
The results of this test show that users were ready to accept robotic solutions into a homecare environment but expectations are high. Most users found the Guardian system easy to use, but it appears older adults’ expectations were not met regarding helpfulness in everyday tasks. Caregivers saw some benefit in using Guardian to facilitate cooperation between caregivers but found human-robot interaction and application functionalities limited. Comments were formulated regarding multiple themes: shared information, company, user experience, interaction, accessibility, and safety. The most common comment was that users want vocal commands for an easier and more natural interaction with the robot.
Conclusions:
Social robotics may very well be a relevant field to explore regarding homecare but users' expectations are growing fast. In this regard, accessibility is key and must remain a primary focus when considering tool development for older adults.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.