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A Long-Term Autonomous Robot at a Care Hospital: A Mixed Methods Study on Social Acceptance and Experiences of Staff and Older Adults

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Abstract

Robot technology could be a future means to ameliorate predicted staff shortage in elder care due to the current demographic change. This study focuses on the evaluation of a long-term autonomous robot that was deployed in a real-world scenario at a care facility for older adults with severe multimorbidity and dementia. Social acceptance and user experience were assessed using a mixed-method design consisting of observations (12 h), ten interviews and 70 questionnaires with members of staff. Findings show that the interacting modalities have to meet the very needs of specific end-user groups and that the perceived utility of a robot is very much tied to its tasks and proper functioning. Social acceptance was ambivalent. On one hand the robot was integrated into daily routines, but on the other hand staff was not willing to share their work space with a robotic aid and saw the introduction of robots in eldercare as an inevitable development. Findings on user experience showed that staff and older adults were interested in and excited about the robot. Still it is necessary to equip the robot with meaningful communication abilities as well as cues that enhance the predictability of its behavior.

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Acknowledgements

The authors want to thank members of staff for their interviews and participation in our study, and the STRANDS project partners. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement No. 600623, STRANDS. (http://strands.acin.tuwien.ac.at/).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Academy for Research on Ageing, Seeböckgasse 30a, 1160, Vienna, Austria

    Denise Hebesberger, Tobias Koertner, Christoph Gisinger & Jürgen Pripfl

  2. Danube University Krems, Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Straße 30, 3500, Krems an der Donau, Austria

    Christoph Gisinger

  3. Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridgeshire, CB1 1PT, UK

    Denise Hebesberger

Authors
  1. Denise Hebesberger
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  2. Tobias Koertner
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  4. Jürgen Pripfl
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Denise Hebesberger.

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Conflict of interest

No conflict of interest declared.

Ethical Standards

The study received ethical approval from the ethics board at the care facility “Haus der Barmherzeigkeit”, Vienna, Austria. This board consists of different professionals from the care context.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Items of Online Survey

See Table 1.

Table 1 Items used in the online survey and answer categories of the 5-point Likert Scale
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Appendix 2

Guideline for the staff interviews

See Table 2.

Table 2 Interview guideline for post-trial staff interviews according to the factors of the USUS-framework
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Hebesberger, D., Koertner, T., Gisinger, C. et al. A Long-Term Autonomous Robot at a Care Hospital: A Mixed Methods Study on Social Acceptance and Experiences of Staff and Older Adults. Int J of Soc Robotics 9, 417–429 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-016-0391-6

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