The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on attitudes towards Human-Robot Collaboration in the Healthcare Environment

Abstract

The need of nursing staff will continue to increase in the next years. At the same time, the healthcare system will face an increase of elderly people. So, the future society will be confronted with socio-political and economic challenges. It is expected that human-robot collaboration will increase in healthcare. This should support and relieve care staff. An online study was conducted to examine differences in the acceptance of different care robots and the general attitude towards robots in the healthcare sector. To additionally analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, two different measurement times were used, one at the beginning of the pandemic resp. after the first corona wave and the first lockdowns, and one five months later. The results of the study should help to understand the acceptance of the potential use of different robots in healthcare and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.