Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: Mar 3, 2022
Date Accepted: May 31, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Caregiver Expectations for Interfacing with Voice Assistants to Support Complex Home Care: Mixed-Methods Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
The diffusion of Voice Assistant (VA) technology in society is increasing due to its novelty, ease of use and fundamental utility. There is also an increase in demand for home care with caregivers providing healthcare services for children with special health care needs (CSHCN) and older adults choosing to age at home. Providing care in home environments is complex, and often the pressure is on caregivers to document information and ensure care continuity. Digital information management and communications technologies may support care coordination among caregivers. However, they have yet to be adopted in this context partly because of issues with supporting long-term disease progression and caregiver anxiety. VA technology is a promising method for interfacing with digital health information that may aid multiple aspects of being a caregiver, therefore influencing adoption. Understanding the expectations for VAs to support caregivers is fundamental to inform the practical development of this technology.
Objective:
This study explores caregivers’ perspectives on using VA technology to support caregiving and inform the design of future digital technologies in complex home care.
Methods:
This study is part of a larger study from caregivers across North America on the design of digital health technologies to support health communication and information management in complex home care. Caregivers included parents, guardians, and hired caregivers such as personal support workers and home care nurses. Video interviews were conducted with caregivers from their homes to capture their mental models on the potential application of VAs in complex home care. Interviews were followed-up with Likert-scale questions. The questions explored perspectives on other VA applications beyond participants’ initial perceptions.
Results:
Data were collected from 22 caregivers, and three themes were identified. First, caregivers Perceived Usefulness for VAs to support documentation, care coordination and person-centred care. Second, caregivers Perceived Ease of Use for navigating information. However, they also had voice interaction concerns. Third, caregivers’ Attitudes Towards Use were influenced by their overall concerns, excitement, and expected costs. From the Likert-scale questions, participants mostly agreed that VAs should support prompted information recording and retrieval. However, participants had mixed perspectives about VAs expressing a personality, teaching caregivers how to perform tasks, assisting in an emergency, and listening ambiently to provide unprompted assistance.
Conclusions:
The interview and Likert-scale results point towards the potential for VAs to support family caregivers and hired caregivers by easing their information management and health communication in the home. However, beyond information interaction, the potential impact of VA personality traits on caregivers’ perceptions of the care situation and the passive collection of audio data to improve the user experience through context-specific interactions are critical design considerations that should be further examined.
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