Abstract

Despite the lively discussion on the pros and cons of using robots in health care, little is still known about how caregivers are affected when robots are introduced in their work environment. The present scoping review fills this research gap by mapping previous studies about the relation between robots in care and caregivers’ working life. The paper is based on searches in four databases for peer-reviewed articles about robots in care settings, published 2000 to 2020. The 27 included papers were examined with the questions of 1) how robots are used by caregivers, and 2) how robots affect caregivers’ work environment. The analysis shows that the use of robots can affect both the physical and the psychosocial work environment, in positive as well as in negative ways. Robots are used in care settings to reduce physical and mental demands of the caregivers, but they can, in fact, increase caregivers’ workload. Thus, the review indicates that robots can improve the quality of work, but that they seldom work as a shortcut to increased efficiency or time effectiveness.

摘要

尽管对在医疗保健中使用机器人的利弊进行了热烈的讨论，但对于在工作环境中引入机器人后，护理人员会受到怎样的影响仍知之甚少。目前的范围审查通过绘制以前关于护理机器人与护理人员工作生活之间关系的研究来填补这一研究空白。该论文基于在 2000 年至 2020 年发表的四个数据库中搜索有关机器人在护理环境中的同行评议文章。纳入的 27 篇论文通过以下问题进行了检查：1) 护理人员如何使用机器人，以及 2) 机器人如何影响护理人员的工作环境。分析表明，机器人的使用可以以积极和消极的方式影响身体和心理社会工作环境。机器人用于护理环境以减少护理人员的身体和精神需求，但实际上它们可以增加护理人员的工作量。因此，审查表明机器人可以提高工作质量，但它们很少作为提高效率或时间效率的捷径而工作。