Use of Social Robots in Mental Health and Well-Being Research: Systematic Review

Abstract

Background Technology-assisted clinical interventions are increasingly common in the health care field, often with the proposed aim to improve access to and cost-effectiveness of care. Current technology platforms delivering interventions are largely mobile apps and online websites, although efforts have been made to create more personalized and embodied technology experiences. To extend and improve on these platforms, the field of robotics has been increasingly included in conversations of how to deliver technology-assisted, interactive, and responsive mental health and psychological well-being interventions. Socially assistive robots (SARs) are robotic technology platforms with audio, visual, and movement capabilities that are being developed to interact with individuals socially while also assisting them with management of their physical and psychological well-being. However, little is known about the empirical evidence or utility of using SARs in mental health interventions. Objective The review synthesizes and describes the nascent empirical literature of SARs in mental health research and identifies strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement in future research and practice. Methods Searches in Medline, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, PubMed, and IEEE Xplore yielded 12 studies included in the final review after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria. Abstract and full-text reviews were conducted by two authors independently. Results This systematic review of the literature found 5 distinct SARs used in research to investigate the potential for this technology to address mental health and psychological well-being outcomes. Research on mental health applications of SARs focuses largely on elderly dementia patients and relies on usability pilot data with methodological limitations. Conclusions The current SARs research in mental health use is limited in generalizability, scope, and measurement of psychological outcomes. Opportunities for expansion of research in this area include diversifying populations studied, SARs used, clinical applications, measures used, and settings for those applications.

Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Interventions for the Elderly: A Scoping Review from 2015–2019

“…However, due to the limited number of people involved in the related research and some methodological problems, the helpfulness and value of socially assistive robots in the health promotion of elderly people still requires further research. [15,16]. Elderly people have both positive and negative views of socially assistive robots in geriatric care.…”

Older People’s Needs and Opportunities for Assistive Technologies

“…Relevant systematic reviews in the last 5 years used the keywords "Elderly", "Older people", "Smart Home Technologies" and "Assistive Technologies", our search found 26 relevant systematic reviews published. These were about older people's attitude to [9] or adoption of [10] technologies, as well as technology for specific disease [11][12][13][14], for social [15] and communication [16], for nursing or caregivers [17], for monitoring [18][19][20] and mental well-beings [21] -none of them were comprehensively about the whole spectrum of assistive technologies, at the same time, none of them comprehensively based on older people's broad spectrum of needs. here is a need for a review based on older people's needs that might be addressed by smart home and assistive technologies.…”

Robotics in Clinical and Developmental Psychology

“…As outlined by a recent systematic review of the literature ( Scoglio et al., 2019 ), to date there is not much research related to the effects of interventions in the neuropsychiatric/clinical sphere in adults and young adults through the use of embodied robotic systems. As a matter of fact, most studies use populations of non-clinical subjects, evaluating, mostly, the effect of robotic agents on the improvement of some psychological difficulties, like anxiety, or aspects associated with quality of life, such as time spent exercising.…”

“…CRECA is connected to a computer and microphone to perform speech functions using natural language processing. It can create conversations with the users and respond to client verbalizations with prompts for continued discussion ( Scoglio et al., 2019 ). An important feature of CRECA is that it can use body language and, more specifically, the “unazuki” (in Japanese), that is a sort of “nodding” which greatly promotes dialog by validating the user's responses.…”