Human-robot interaction studies with adults in health and wellbeing contexts-outcomes and challenges

Social robots have great potential to support individuals’ health and wellbeing. We did a follow up study based on previous work of a 2021 systematic review following PRISMA guidelines that identified 443 research articles evaluating social robots in health/wellbeing contexts with adult participants. In this paper we performed a new analysis that showed that while the vast majority of the articles reported positive outcomes related to the use of social robots in these contexts, only half of those articles supported the results by statistical tests and comparisons, highlighting a need for future studies with robust methodologies that can further study and inform the use of social robots for supporting adults in health/wellbeing. We discuss that different qualitative and quantitative methodologies are equally valuable, as long as the conclusions are based on the data collected. We also encourage publication of studies with well designed and executed methodologies that lead to neutral or negative outcomes. This is in line with other scientific research fields that emphasize the need to report on such results to avoid needless replication of studies that have already been done and could provide important lessons for the field, but never got published.