Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: Dec 22, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: Dec 27, 2024 - Feb 21, 2025
Date Accepted: Jun 3, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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 Importance of Health Consumer Groups in Research: Interviews about Social Robots Use Among Older Adults
ABSTRACT
Background:
There is an increased focus on involving members of the public in health research. These types of groups such as ‘health consumers’ bring different expertise in informing the design of a research study. There is a growing general concern about older adults’ acceptance and use of technologies.
Objective:
To explore the perspectives of a health consumer about using social robots with older adults in an Australian context. Based on this information, further explore how Australian older adults will come to accept and use a social robot.
Methods:
Researchers recruited members of an expert health consumer group, the Age and Ageing Clinical Academic Group (AAA CAG) for interviews regarding social robots and older adults. Semi-structured interviews were conducted via zoom with 5 panel members of the AAA CAG.
Results:
The health consumer panel provided invaluable insights into their perceptions of social robots and how they could best be propositioned to Australia’s older adults. There was some consensus among panel members on the need for professional input, education and experience building with the technology. Furthermore, overcoming hesitancy barriers could be resolved by building experience with the technology over time as with other forms of assistive technologies. The panel members expressed that aesthetic qualities and a perception of usefulness or benefits needed to be evident to gain the adoption and use of social robots by older adults. Finally, none of the panel members raised concerns about serious resistance or hesitancy they or other older adults would raise in accepting and using a social robot.
Conclusions:
Having now been pre-tested among an expert healthcare consumer panel by the authors, the findings of this study should provide confidence to the other element of the triple helix model: Industry. However, as mentioned in the limitations of this study, social robot research among older adults in Australia is still emerging. This study represents nascent exploratory research that requires further testing. It is the recommendation of the authors, in conjunction with industry partners that field testing of social robots among older adults is critical to exploring their acceptance and use by this demographic as they will become the end users of the technology Clinical Trial: N/A
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