Previously submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research (no longer under consideration since Sep 14, 2022)
Date Submitted: Jul 9, 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Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Acceptance Before Use of a Mobile Telepresence Robot to Remotely Supervise Older Adults’ Physical Activity: A Questionnaire Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Numerous studies showed that regular practice of physical activity helps to prevent the deleterious effects of aging on health and functional capacities. Unfortunately, however, many older adults do not have access to specialized facilities or Adapted Physical Activity (APA) teachers where they live. Several technologies (eg, exergames, autonomous robots with artificial intelligence, or videoconference) may help to break with their isolation by allowing supervising physical activity remotely. Among them, mobile telepresence robots (MTR), which combine videoconference and mobile embodiment, may be a promising solution to supervise older adults’ physical activity since they are piloted by an APA teacher present in a distant location. However, to our best knowledge, their acceptance by older adults has never been investigated in the context of APA.
Objective:
The present study investigated the acceptance by older adults of the MTR as a technological device intended to remotely supervise physical activity. The first aim was to test the validity of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) applied to this device (MTR), purpose (remote physical activity), and population (older adults), including an external variable in the model, namely expectations regarding aging. The second aim was to investigate the level of acceptance of the MTR.
Methods:
A sample of 230 French older adults (154 women, 76 men) between 55 and 84 years (Mage = 66.61 years, SD = 7.06) finally participated in the study. They filled out an anonymous questionnaire assessing the variables of the TAM (perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived enjoyment, subjective norms, and intention to use the MTR) and expectations for aging.
Results:
The main results of the structural equation modeling showed that older adults’ intention to use the MTR for practicing physical activity was positively predicted by perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, perceived ease of use, and subjective norms, and that expectations regarding aging positively predicted its perceived usefulness. Moreover, the results of the one-sample t-tests showed that mean scores of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived enjoyment were significantly higher than the mean of the Likert scale, while no significant differences were found for subjective norms and intention to use.
Conclusions:
The MTR appeared to be rather well accepted by older adults, suggesting that APA teachers might use it to remotely supervise their physical activity sessions, especially with older adults who have high expectations regarding aging. Clinical Trial: The present study is not a clinical trial, but it has been approved by the National Ethics Committee (N°IRB00012476-2021-10-03-93).
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