Benefits, Challenges, and Opportunities for Empathetic Social Assistance Robots in Hospitals: An Acceptability Study

This study investigated the acceptability of a hospital robot’s responses to hypothetical patients, considering empathetic and non-empathetic conditions. It also explored the benefits and challenges of using social robots in hospitals, and areas for improving empathy. Using a mixed-methods survey, participants reported their perceptions of acceptability, usefulness, satisfaction, and empathy after watching 8 videos of a robot greeting, checking COVID-19 index symptoms, entertaining and giving directions to a patient actor. The robot was empathetic in 4 videos and non-empathetic in 4 other videos. Open-ended questions explored the benefits and challenges of using hospital robots, and ideas for improvement. Descriptive statistics and paired samples Wilcoxon-signed rank tests were conducted on quantitative data. Qualitative data were analyzed using an inductive content synthesis approach. Participants (N=147) were most comfortable with the robot giving directions (mean: 4.34; SD: 0.90) and least comfortable with checking COVID-19 symptoms (mean: 3.06; SD: 1.21). Participants were significantly more satisfied with the empathetic robot and rated it as more empathetic, useful, and having more natural speech and gestures (p’s < 0.001). They were less likely to prefer a human when the empathetic robot was performing the tasks (p=0.005). Benefits were related to the healthcare system, staff and patients, whereas the technology, the user experience, the robot not being human, and logistics could create challenges. Empathetic robots may be perceived as more acceptable. Future work should explore how to create more genuine interactions, identify low-risk areas for automation in healthcare and focus on synchronizing responses.