Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Jun 24, 2022
Date Accepted: Sep 29, 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Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
The DOMIROB protocol: testing and evaluating the usability and acceptability of a telepresence robot and its impact on social isolation in older adults at home
ABSTRACT
Background:
There is a growing phenomenon of social isolation among older adults. Social withdrawal in this population is often associated to the presence of depressive states, cognitive decline, sleep disorders, addictions, and over-mortality. To limit isolation in older adults, some authors recommend the use of new communication technologies to help preserve a social link with the family. Among these communication tools, telepresence robots seem to be a promising solution. Indeed, these robots offer users the possibility of making video calls with their relatives and with social and health care professionals in order to maintain social contact and have access to care and support services while remaining at home. Nevertheless, telepresence robots are still little studied in ecological environments.
Objective:
The main objective of the DOMIROB protocol is to measure the impact of telepresence robots on the social isolation of elderly people living at home
Methods:
This article describes the design of an intervention study, the DOMIROB project, whose main objective is to measure the impact of telepresence robots on the social isolation of older adults living at home. Sixty older adults will participate in this study for six months. During this period, they will host a telepresence robot for three months in order to test it in their home. In total, four evaluations will be carried out over the entire experimental phase for each participant. We plan to carry out a multidimensional assessment of the impact of the robot on the participants' daily lives. This assessment will also help to identify the ergonomic aspects that influence the robot's usability and acceptability among older adults.
Results:
Data collection started in September 2020 and will end in August 2022. 56 participants have currently been recruited. Preliminary results are currently being analyzed.
Conclusions:
The DOMIROB study will provide new knowledge on the impact of social telepresence robots in older adults, including a large number of participants, a long period of technology use and a longitudinal systematic assessment of the intervention. So far, no study in the literature had encompassed all these assessment modalities. The results will make it possible to suggest technological, ethical, organizational and ethical recommendations for the use and implementation of telepresence robots for older adults in real-life settings. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04767100
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