A Survey of Nurses' Need for Care Robots in Children's Hospitals

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate nurses' need for care robots in children's hospitals and to help develop care robots that can be used by combining robot-care, game-care, and edu-care. This study employed a mixed-methods design; 198 nurses were recruited for quantitative research and 12 for qualitative research. The findings were as follows. Robot-care: Participants had an overwhelming preference for robots made of plastic or steel that could easily be washed and sterilized. Game-care: Among nursing procedures, vital sign measurements were the most common actions that could be implemented using game elements. Edu-care: The educational content that participants felt should be presented to child patients and caregivers through care robots included information about hospitalization, discharge, infection control, falls, and pressure ulcer prevention. Qualitative data divided the role of care robots into five subcategories associated with children and one subcategory associated with guardians. The findings of this study are meaningful in that it clarified the needs of nurses in the development of care robots for use in children's hospitals.

Caregiver Views on Prospective Use of Robotic Care in Helping Children Adapt to Hospitalization

“…From the standpoint of the caregivers, a cartoon character-based robot was the favored type of care robot. A character-based robot was also the favored form of care robot in a study of pediatric nurses [ 22 ]. This result was the same as another study of children aged 4–7 years [ 25 ].…”

“…According to previous surveys, nurses and doctors preferred that the robot move on wheels (71.1%) [ 27 ]. The robot’s movement, according to Jin and Kim [ 22 ], preferred walking shape. The researchers believe that rolling with wheels is more stable and does not hurt patients.…”

“…The caregivers preferred medication in the game elements to provide a reason for and method of medicine administration in an educational manner via a care robot. Medication was the second-most prevalent item that might be implemented when utilizing game features according to pediatric nurses [ 22 ]. Baek et al [ 28 ] found that, among children aged 6 to 12, 32.6% of children owned a smartphone and used game functions the most.…”

“…After revising a questionnaire developed by the researcher for nurses to suit the purpose of this study, four experts modified it to ensure content validity [ 22 ]. The experts consisted of one person enrolled in a PhD program in child nursing, one with a PhD in child nursing, and two professors of nursing informatics.…”

Artificial Intelligence Application in the Design of Children's Service Robot Based on Context Perception

“…Literature [8] took the emotional design as the theoretical basis, analyzes, and compares the existing products on the market in terms of the design elements, and uses the three levels in the Norman emotional design to target the children's emotional needs.…”