Factors Associated With Pediatric Health Care Professionals' Intention to Adopt Socially Assistive Robots: Mixed...

Socially assistive robots (SARs) have the potential to support pediatric care; yet, routine clinical adoption remains limited. Because SARs interact directly with children, health care professionals (HCPs) may consider not only clinical utility and usability but also child-robot interaction, trust, and implementation concerns that may not be fully represented by conventional technology acceptance frameworks.

This study aimed to examine factors associated with pediatric HCPs' behavioral intention (BI) to adopt SARs and explored how clinical perspectives contextualized conventional technology acceptance constructs.

A convergent parallel mixed methods study was conducted at a tertiary medical center in Taiwan between June and December 2025. In the quantitative strand, 125 pediatric HCPs viewed a standardized video of a SAR interacting with a child and completed a Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2)-based questionnaire incorporating trust. Multiple linear regression examined associations with BI. In the qualitative strand, 17 HCPs with direct clinical SAR exposure, recruited primarily from 2 pilot units, participated in semistructured interviews. The strands involved partially overlapping but nonequivalent samples with different levels of SAR exposure. Qualitative data were analyzed thematically, and findings were integrated using a joint display.

The quantitative model accounted for 72.7% of the variance in BI. Social influence (SI: β=0.348; P<.001), hedonic motivation (HM: β=0.307; P<.001), and performance expectancy (PE: β=0.238; P=.001) had the largest standardized coefficients; the association for trust was small and sensitive to model specification, whereas effort expectancy (EE) and facilitating conditions (FC) were not significantly associated with BI. Limited discriminant validity and potential common method variance warranted caution in construct-specific interpretation. Qualitative analysis generated 6 themes concerning children's emotional and stress-related challenges, SAR functions and clinical positioning, HCP attitudes, child-centered design, and implementation and institutional considerations. Integration showed convergence for clinical usefulness and complementarity for trust-related concerns. Children's engagement and relational interaction were conceptually distinct from UTAUT2-defined HM, reflecting HCPs' own enjoyment. SI was prominent quantitatively but was not articulated as a salient consideration in participants' accounts, whereas operational concerns were elaborated in detail in participants' accounts despite the nonsignificant association for EE.

Pediatric HCPs' intentions to adopt SARs were associated with SI, HM, and PE, but measurement limitations and the predominantly video-based evaluation context preclude interpreting these associations as distinct determinants or predictors of actual use. Qualitative findings highlighted child-centered relational value and context-specific implementation concerns. Child-centered relational value was conceptually distinct from HCP-centered HM, suggesting that evaluations of patient-facing socially interactive technologies may involve considerations not fully represented by conventional user-centered acceptance constructs. Multisite longitudinal studies using validated measures and real-world SAR exposure are needed to examine actual uptake and sustained use.