Department of Psychiatry, Cathay General Hospital, New Taipei City, Taiwan.
MS program in transdisciplinary long-term care, College of Medicine, Fu Jen Catholic University, New Taipei City, Taiwan.
Work. 2021;68(1):21-26. doi: 10.3233/WOR-205096.
Prior to the COVID-19 global health emergency, reducing direct contacts between therapists and patients is an important issue, and could be achieved by using robots to perform certain caring activities.
This study compares therapeutic factors of singing group activities directed by social robots and by occupational therapists at elderly care centers during this COVID-19 outbreak.
This project has a quasi-experimental research design, based on a pilot study of 14 subjects aged above 65 years. They received eight sessions of singing group therapy given by a social robot or an occupational therapist. Completed copies of a therapeutic-factor questionnaire were then collected.
At the 4th week, the scores for 8 therapeutic factors were higher in sessions with the occupational therapist than the robot-directed sessions, reaching a statistically significant level; at the 8th week, the scores for 3 therapeutic factors, including imparting of information, were higher in sessions with the occupational therapist than in sessions with the robot. The top scoring therapeutic factor in the robot sessions was group cohesiveness.
Social robots may be good companion tools for elderly care during this COVID-19 outbreak, but group therapy sessions supervised by real-person therapists still have higher therapeutic factor scores than those conducted by robots. The number of subjects needs to be increased to enhance the validity of future study results.
在 COVID-19 全球卫生紧急情况之前，减少治疗师与患者之间的直接接触是一个重要问题，可以通过使用机器人来执行某些护理活动来实现。
本研究比较了在 COVID-19 疫情期间，社交机器人和职业治疗师在养老院指导唱歌小组活动的治疗因素。
本项目采用准实验研究设计，对 14 名 65 岁以上的受试者进行了一项试点研究。他们接受了由社交机器人或职业治疗师进行的八次唱歌小组治疗。然后收集完成的治疗因素问卷。
在第 4 周，职业治疗师指导的小组治疗的 8 个治疗因素评分高于机器人指导的小组治疗，达到统计学显著水平；在第 8 周，职业治疗师指导的小组治疗的 3 个治疗因素评分（包括信息传授）高于机器人指导的小组治疗。机器人小组治疗中得分最高的治疗因素是群体凝聚力。
在 COVID-19 疫情期间，社交机器人可能是老年人护理的良好伴侣工具，但由真人治疗师监督的小组治疗的治疗因素评分仍高于机器人小组治疗。需要增加受试者数量，以提高未来研究结果的有效性。
