Comparison of Nursing Personnel’s User Experiences of Four Types of Assistive Robots: Challenges Include Knowledge and Safety Issues

The interest to employ service robots in the care context is increasing due to the aging population. Many studies have examined robot acceptance from various angles, but reports of actual robot usage and the user experiences of professional personnel are scarce. Via an online user experience questionnaire, this study targeted nursing personnel who have used assistive robots in their work. Ten statements, modified after the Almere questionnaire, concerned the respondents’ acceptance of robots which they had used. Four different types of robots (robotic therapy animal; rehabilitation/recreational robot; telepresence robot; and patient lifting robot) were each covered separately. Most of the reported robot usage was with the seal robot Paro, and regular use of any robot was rare. The intentions to use and the attitudes towards each type of robot were generally positive. The patient lifting robots were most positively received regarding their usefulness, whereas the interaction with the robotic therapy animals was rated pleasant. Fewer respondents had used the rehabilitation/recreational robots and telepresence robots, which received lower scores than the others regarding many of the studied user experience aspects. In general, more knowledge is needed to make good use of the robots. Furthermore, it seems there are some concerns of the safety of using them. These results show that the initial steps towards employing robots in care work have been taken. There is a lot of under explored ground between the simple-to-use therapy animal robots and functional patient lifting robots, and the potential and acceptance of those robots is yet to be seen. These results give a baseline for monitoring the service robot acceptance of nursing personnel based on actual robot usage.