"She has become my best friend": a qualitative study on the perspective of elderly with type 2 diabetes regarding the use of an interactive virtual assistant device for diabetes care and mental health promotion.

Aims: To qualitatively evaluate the experiences and emotional responses of elderly individuals with type 2 diabetes regarding the use of an interactive virtual assistant device.

Methods and results: This qualitative study included elderly individuals who were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and who had been using the Smart Speaker EchoDot 3rd Gen (Amazon Echo^®) device for three months. A structured face-to-face interview with open-ended questions was conducted to evaluate their experiences and emotional responses associated with the device. Data analysis was performed using inductive thematic content analysis with deductive coding followed by narrative synthesis to present the overall perceptions of the participants. Thirty individuals with a mean diabetes duration of 17.1 ± 9.45 years and a mean age of 71.9 ± 5.1 years were interviewed to ensure saturation of responses. Three major themes were identified through response analysis: (1) Emotional response to user experience; (2) Humanization feelings in human-device interactions; (3) Diabetes-related self-care. Overall, participants experienced a wide range of feelings regarding the use of the interactive virtual assistant device, predominantly with positive connotations, highlighting aspects of humanization of technology and its use, and experiencing assistance in self-care related to diabetes.

Conclusion: Our results highlight the overwhelmingly positive emotional responses and strong sense of humanization expressed by elderly individuals with diabetes toward an interactive virtual assistant device. This underscores its potential to improve mental health and diabetes care, although further studies are warranted to fully explore its impact.