Can social robots help children in healthcare contexts? A scoping review

Abstract

ObjectiveTo review research on social robots to help children in healthcare contexts in order to describe the current state of the literature and explore future directions for research and practice.DesignScoping review.Data sourcesEngineering Village, IEEE Xplore, Medline, PsycINFO and Scopus databases were searched up until 10 July 2017. Only publications written in English were considered. Identified publications were initially screened by title and abstract, and the full texts of remaining publications were then subsequently screened.Eligibility criteriaPublications were included if they were journal articles, conference proceedings or conference proceedings published as monographs that described the conceptualisation, development, testing or evaluation of social robots for use with children with any mental or physical health condition or disability. Publications on autism exclusively, robots for use with children without identified health conditions, physically assistive or mechanical robots, non-physical hardware robots and surgical robots were excluded.ResultsSeventy-three publications were included in the review, of which 50 included user studies with a range of samples. Most were feasibility studies with small sample sizes, suggesting that the robots were generally accepted. At least 26 different robots were used, with many of these still in development. The most commonly used robot was NAO. The evidence quality was low, with only one randomised controlled trial and a limited number of experimental designs.ConclusionsSocial robots hold significant promise and potential to help children in healthcare contexts, but higher quality research is required with experimental designs and larger sample sizes.

Educational Robotics for children with neurodevelopmental disorders: A systematic review

“…Some reviews explore the use of robotics in therapy and health care context (e.g. Dawe et al., 2019 ; Istenic Starcic and Bagon, 2014 ). Differently, our review focuses on the evaluation of outcome of ER, as defined above.…”

A Systematic Review of Attitudes, Anxiety, Acceptance, and Trust Towards Social Robots

“…Acceptance of robots in healthcare has been found to be mixed and can vary considerably depending on the function and appearance of the robot [34]. Despite the potential that social robots have to alleviate the ever-growing demands on healthcare professionals [34,35], low levels of acceptance can prove detrimental to the development and utilisation of such technology [34,36]. Therefore, a broader understanding of the extent to which social robots are accepted in healthcare and other settings; along with factors that are associated with acceptance is needed.…”

Using AI-Enhanced Social Robots to Improve Children’s Healthcare Experiences

“…In a recent medical scoping review, Dawe et al [6] surveyed the potential uses of social robotics in children's healthcare contexts and found potential benefits of using social robots to help children who require short-and long-term hospitalisation, as well as intensive care. This review also identified several important gaps in this research area, which we plan, in part, to address.…”