JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Today, virtually all smartphones provide a digital voice assistant (DVA) for their user, and it is estimated that about 90% of adults reported owning and operating a smartphone. A DVA is an automated system pre-installed on technological devices, such as smartphones, computers, tablets, and speakers, that serves to aid users in performing tasks like answering questions, home control, playing music, managing schedules, sending messages, and more. Research with DVA is emerging, and the applicability to health and healthcare is needed.

Objective:

This study’s objective was to describe the use of digital voice assistants among primary care patients, as well as purposely sampled clinics including patients with low-vision and physical disabilities.

Methods:

A convenience sample of adult participants were recruited to complete a needs assessment survey to ascertain the interest and possible utility of digital voice assistants to promote and enhance health from among three populations: general primary care patients recruited from a primary care clinic, patients with low vision recruited from the low vision clinic at an academic medical eye center, and patients with physical disabilities recruited from a physical medicine and rehab clinic. The survey used in this study was a 46-item investigator-developed instrument administered to participants assessing knowledge, use, and perceptions of digital voice assistants, participant interest to participate in related future studies, and demographic questions.

Results:

The results of the survey showed that the majority of participants have used a digital voice assistant before (69.7%; 152/218) and were willing to use DVA in the future (78.4%; 171/218). Participants reported moderate to high concern about the privacy (47.8%; 97/203), security (54.5%; 110/202), and confidentiality (51.7%; 105/203) of digital voice assistants. Those with vision-related disabilities reported a greater percentage having never used DVA than those without vision-related disabilities (39.0% vs. 24.6%.; P=.03). There was no significant difference in reliance on DVA for the participants with and without physical disabilities (45.0% vs. 34.9%; P=.31) indicating they do not require it for everyday needs.

Conclusions:

DVA use remains low among the surveyed participants with physical disabilities and low vision. For those with low vision, DVA use was seen to be advantageous in everyday life for tasks such as answering questions and seeking more information but not for those with physical disabilities. However, further research should be conducted that focuses on the utilization of DVA by accessing data that represents an individual’s DVA use without being biased by knowledge of a research study. Additionally, research is needed on DVA use that includes diverse samples of participants with physical disabilities and low vision that addresses the barriers to using DVAs for these adult populations.