Effects of robot-assisted digital storytelling on hospitalized children’s communication during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This study proposed a robot-assisted digital storytelling approach to reduce hospitalized children's anxiety about intravenous injections and to improve their therapeutic communication and therapeutic engagement. In order to verify the effectiveness of the robot-assisted digital storytelling approach, a randomized controlled study was implemented. A total of 47 children from a regional hospital were randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 21) and a control group (n = 26). The experimental group adopted the robot-assisted digital storytelling approach in health education for intravenous injections, while the control group received video-based health education. The study results indicated that the proposed robot-assisted digital storytelling approach not only reduced the children's anxiety, but also had positive effects on children's communication about intravenous injections, emotions during hospitalization, and therapeutic engagement. As a consequence, it is suggested that educators and researchers consider adopting robot-assisted digital storytelling to facilitate nursing clinical health education for children.

The Effectiveness of Socially Assistive Robots in Improving Children’s Pain and Negative Affectivity during Needle-based Invasive Treatment: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

“…All the included studies were published in the past ten years and were conducted across six countries. A total of 815 participants reported pain-related and affective outcomes during IV placement (5 studies [14][20] [21][29] [30] ), port needle insertion (1 study [31] ), flu vaccination (1 study [19] ), blood sampling (1 study [32] ) and dental treatment (2 studies [33][34] ). Almost all the children had underlying medical conditions with the exception of 34 healthy children in Beran's trial.…”

The Promotion of Healthy Hydration Habits through Educational Robotics in University Students

“…Several studies have demonstrated its positive impact on the development of skills such as computational thinking, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, motivation, and metacognitive skills [34][35][36][37][38]. According to the scientific literature, learning via robotics means that students learn knowledge from different areas, such as science and mathematics, and biosanitary content through the use of robots [38][39][40][41][42]. Despite this, there is very little scientific literature analyzing the influence of ER on improving curricular content, especially bioscience content, and existing studies usually focus on improving the knowledge and skills related to the robot itself and its handling [40][41][42][43].…”

“…According to the scientific literature, learning via robotics means that students learn knowledge from different areas, such as science and mathematics, and biosanitary content through the use of robots [38][39][40][41][42]. Despite this, there is very little scientific literature analyzing the influence of ER on improving curricular content, especially bioscience content, and existing studies usually focus on improving the knowledge and skills related to the robot itself and its handling [40][41][42][43]. Benitti [44] and Ferrada [45] identified studies that presented the advantages of the use of ER in teaching content, including scientific content, at the Early Childhood Education stage [46], in Primary Education [47], or in Secondary Education [48].…”