A Relational Agent for the COVID-19 Patients: Design, Approach, and Implications

Relational agents (RAs) have shown effectiveness in various health interventions with and without doctors and hospital facilities. We suggest that in situations such as a pandemic like the COVID-19 when healthcare professionals (HCPs) and facilities are unable to cope with increased demands, RAs can play a major role in ameliorating the situation.

The goal of this research was to seek design validation on a prototypical RA to address healthcare needs of the COVID-19 patients.

Therefore, RAs can deliver health interventions during COVID-19 pandemic, but they have not been well-explored in this domain. To address this gap, a prototypical RA is iteratively designed and developed in collaboration with infected patients (n=21) and two groups of HCPs (n=19 and n=16 respectively) to aid COVID-19 patients at various stages by performing four main tasks: testing guidance, support during self-isolation, handling emergency situations, and promoting post-recovery mental well-being.

A survey with 98 individuals was used to evaluate the usability of the prototype by system usability scale (SUS) and it received an average score of 58.82. Moreover, participants indicated perceived usefulness and acceptability of the system on Likert Scales where 89.65% perceived it to be helpful, 68.97% accepted it as a viable alternative to HCPs.

The prototypical RA received favorable feedback from the participants and they were inclined to accept it as an alternative to HCPs in non-life-threatening scenarios despite the usability rating falling below the acceptable threshold. Based on participants' feedback, we recommend further development of the RA with improved automation and emotional support, ability to provide information, tracking, and specific recommendations.