Trainum Katie, Tunis Rachel, Xie Bo, Hauser Elliott
School of Nursing, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States.
School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States.
JMIR Aging. 2023 Mar 6;6:e42652. doi: 10.2196/42652.
Various technological interventions have been proposed and studied to address the growing demand for care of residents in assisted living facilities, in which a preexisting shortage of professional caregivers has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Care robots are one such intervention with the potential to improve both the care of older adults and the work life of their professional caregivers. However, concerns about efficacy, ethics, and best practices in the applications of robotic technologies in care settings remain.
This scoping review aimed to examine the literature on robots used in assisted living facilities and identify gaps in the literature to guide future research.
On February 12, 2022, following the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) protocol, we searched PubMed, CINAHL Plus with Full Text, PsycINFO, IEEE Xplore digital library, and ACM Digital Library using predetermined search terms. Publications were included if they were written in English and focused on the use of robotics in assisted living facilities. Publications were excluded if they did not provide peer-reviewed empirical data, focused on user needs, or developed an instrument to study human-robot interaction. The study findings were then summarized, coded, and analyzed using the Patterns, Advances, Gaps, Evidence for practice, and Research recommendations framework.
The final sample included 73 publications from 69 unique studies on the use of robots in assisted living facilities. The findings of studies on older adults were mixed, with some studies suggesting positive impacts of robots, some expressing concerns about robots and barriers to their use, and others being inconclusive. Although many therapeutic benefits of care robots have been identified, methodological limitations have weakened the internal and external validity of the findings of these studies. Few studies (18/69, 26%) considered the context of care: most studies (48/69, 70%) collected data only on recipients of care, 15 studies collected data on staff, and 3 studies collected data on relatives or visitors. Theory-driven, longitudinal, and large sample size study designs were rare. Across the authors' disciplines, a lack of consistency in methodological quality and reporting makes it difficult to synthesize and assess research on care robotics.
The findings of this study call for more systematic research on the feasibility and efficacy of robots in assisted living facilities. In particular, there is a dearth of research on how robots may change geriatric care and the work environment within assisted living facilities. To maximize the benefits and minimize the consequences for older adults and caregivers, future research will require interdisciplinary collaboration among health sciences, computer science, and engineering as well as agreement on methodological standards.
为满足辅助生活设施中居民日益增长的护理需求，人们提出并研究了各种技术干预措施。在这些设施中，专业护理人员本就短缺，而新冠疫情更是加剧了这一情况。护理机器人就是这样一种干预措施，它有潜力改善老年人的护理状况以及专业护理人员的工作生活。然而，对于机器人技术在护理环境中的有效性、伦理问题和最佳实践仍存在担忧。
本范围综述旨在研究辅助生活设施中使用机器人的相关文献，并找出文献中的空白以指导未来研究。
2022年2月12日，我们按照PRISMA-ScR（系统评价和Meta分析扩展版的首选报告项目）方案，使用预定的搜索词在PubMed、CINAHL Plus全文数据库、PsycINFO、IEEE Xplore数字图书馆和ACM数字图书馆中进行搜索。如果出版物是用英文撰写且专注于辅助生活设施中机器人的使用，则予以纳入。如果出版物未提供经过同行评审的实证数据、专注于用户需求或开发了研究人机交互的工具，则予以排除。然后使用模式、进展、差距、实践证据和研究建议框架对研究结果进行总结、编码和分析。
最终样本包括来自69项关于辅助生活设施中机器人使用的独特研究的73篇出版物。关于老年人的研究结果不一，一些研究表明机器人有积极影响，一些研究对机器人及其使用障碍表示担忧，还有一些研究尚无定论。尽管已确定护理机器人有许多治疗益处，但方法学上的局限性削弱了这些研究结果的内部和外部有效性。很少有研究（18/69，26%）考虑护理背景：大多数研究（48/69，70%）仅收集了护理接受者的数据，15项研究收集了工作人员的数据，3项研究收集了亲属或访客的数据。理论驱动、纵向和大样本量的研究设计很少见。在作者的各个学科中，方法学质量和报告缺乏一致性，使得难以综合和评估护理机器人学的研究。
本研究结果呼吁对机器人在辅助生活设施中的可行性和有效性进行更系统的研究。特别是，关于机器人如何改变老年护理以及辅助生活设施内工作环境的研究很少。为了使老年人和护理人员的利益最大化并将后果最小化，未来的研究将需要健康科学、计算机科学和工程学之间的跨学科合作以及方法学标准的统一。
