Absorbability, applicability and availability in nursing and care robots: A thematic analysis of Twitter postings

Abstract Nursing and care robots (NCR) have become an important technological innovation in various areas in the medical discipline. Previous studies have found that implementation of robots in healthcare is both associated with positive and negative attitudes. This study aims to improve the understanding of the general public’s communication about nursing and care robots through analyzing the content of posts in social media. An advanced social intelligence platform was used to mine Twitter content. From the platform, data were collected historically. An archival and cross-sectional observational study was conducted online. The data set comprising of 5954 tweets were thematically analyzed. Tweets under the theme of absorbability show that nursing and care robots are considered to be a part of users’ lives, either now or sometime in the future for Twitter users, and the topic is tackled as a fact but with humor, skepticism and enthusiasm. Tweets falling under applicability show that potential nursing and care robots usage covers a range of arenas in everyday life. Results thematized as availability show sincere concern about how the accessibility of nursing and care robots in everyday life will affect costs and other economic aspects, both on a global and an individual level as well as on micro and macro levels of economies. Twitter offers a window into attitudes and ideas as well as fundamental beliefs and practices. Thus, monitoring Twitter discussions on social media can provide valuable insights into current attitudes as well as forecasting coming trends. The data includes information about Twitter users’ anxious relationships with nursing and care robots. We raise important questions about the nature of nursing and care robots and their implementations, both in health care but also in everyday living.

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