Assessing Professional Caregivers' Intention to Use and Relatives' Support of Use for a Mobile Service Robot in Group Therapy for Institutionalized People with Dementia - A Standardized Assessment Using an Adapted Version of UTAUT

Introduction: Care settings for people with dementia involve not only the individuals who are being cared for but also professional caregivers and relatives. Therefore, the use of a social robot also depends on professional caregivers' and relatives' acceptance of the robot.
Methods: We surveyed 29 relatives and 18 professional caregivers of institutionalized people with dementia in a nursing home in Germany. To assess acceptance, we used an adapted version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and the Almere model.
Results: Intention to use the robot by professional caregivers correlates positively with attitude, facilitating conditions and perceived usefulness as well as negatively with anxiety. Support of use by relatives correlates positively with attitude, perceived usefulness, facilitating conditions and social influence. Intention to use and support of use significantly differ between professional caregivers and relatives.
Conclusion: For professional caregivers and relatives that are not the primary users of the robot and only indirectly affected by the employment of a robot, perceived usefulness and attitude have a significant influence on the acceptance. Professional caregivers are more skeptical about social robots and have lower acceptance values compared to relatives.

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