Use of Nursing Care Robots in Nursing Care Facilities for the Elderly and Recognition of Changes in Care Approach Due to Robot Use by Facility Managers and Professional Staff

In order to clarify the use of nursing care robots and the recognition by staff that robots have changed their approach to care at nursing care facilities for the elderly, a random self-completed survey was administered by post to 835 nursing care facilities for the elderly (about 10% of 8,234 facilities nationwide, as of October 2021). The response rate was 15.9%. The results showed experience using nursing care robots in 72 cases (54.1%), and the types in order of greatest usage were: monitoring robots, transfer assistance robots, and bathing support robots. Respondents were asked to indicate their recognition of changes in care approach due to nursing care robot use on a five-point scale, and factor analysis was carried out using the principal factor method. As a result, five factors were identified: “workload reduction,” “use issues,” “effectiveness of use,” “patient safety,” and “dependence on robots.” Some differences were seen between facility managers and care givers in mean score for individual factors: “patient safety” was significantly higher for facility managers than general care givers, and “dependence on robots” was significantly higher for professional staff. As issues for promoting the use of nursing care robots, greater understanding will be needed of the usage situation of nursing care robots by type, and recognition by professional staff of changes in care due to robot use, and organizational systems will have to be developed.