Nurses' awareness of ethical issues relating to medical and caregiving robots.
Background: Japan has been promoting the use of medical and long-term care robots to reduce the workload of healthcare professionals. In home-visit nursing, where the number of older adults and patients with dementia is increasing, robots may provide benefits, such as supporting infection control an...
| Publicado en: | Nursing Ethics Vol. 33; no. 6; pp. 1939 - 1952 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , , |
| Formato: | research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Sage Publications Inc.
Sep2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=196513991&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 196513991 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 09697330 31K jtl: Nursing Ethics issn: 09697330 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Sep2026 vid: 33 iid: 6 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. place: Thousand Oaks, California artinfo: ui: 196513991 194069582 196513991 196513991 10.1177/09697330261449299 196513991 ppf: 1939 ppct: 13 formats: tig: atl: Nurses' awareness of ethical issues relating to medical and caregiving robots. aug: au: Ito, Chiharu Tamenaga, Yoshinori Hara, Yoshie Shinozaki, Emiko Ejiri, Harumi affil: Graduate School Department of Nursing Research, University of Human Environments, Obu City, Aichi, Japan sug: subj: Home Health Nurses Psychosocial Factors Home Health Nursing Ethical Issues Ethics, Nursing Robotics Ethical Issues Robotics Utilization Nursing Knowledge Evaluation Nurse Attitudes Evaluation Human Male Female Adult Middle Age Aged Japan Multimethod Studies Validation Studies Comparative Studies Descriptive Statistics Multicenter Studies Questionnaires Pretest-Posttest Design Thematic Analysis Interviews Self Report Task Performance and Analysis Work Experiences Nurse-Patient Relations Workload Productivity Patient Safety Home Environment Health Resource Utilization Professional Competence Professional Compliance Therapy, Computer Assisted Funding Source Adult: 19-44 years Middle Aged: 45-64 years Aged: 65+ years Male Female ab: Background: Japan has been promoting the use of medical and long-term care robots to reduce the workload of healthcare professionals. In home-visit nursing, where the number of older adults and patients with dementia is increasing, robots may provide benefits, such as supporting infection control and physically demanding care. However, implementing these technologies may also generate new ethical challenges. Objective: To clarify home-visiting nurses' perceptions and the ethical issues regarding the introduction of medical and caregiving robots into home-visiting nursing field in Japan. Methods: A mixed-methods design was employed. A questionnaire survey was distributed to one nurse from each of 1012 home-visit nursing stations in Prefecture A. Descriptive statistics were used for quantitative analysis. To gain deeper insights, interviews were conducted with eight nurses who consented to participate. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the institutional review board (Approval No.: 2022N-026). Participation was voluntary, and informed consent was obtained. Data were anonymized to ensure confidentiality. Results and discussion: The questionnaire response rate was 17%. Simple tabulation showed that visiting nurses had positive expectations regarding the introduction of medical care robots but lacked confidence in their specific usefulness and safety. Only "disinfection of equipment" was identified as a task that could be fully shifted to robots. Twenty-six tasks, including "rehabilitation," "massage," "bathing and shower care," and "relaxation," were considered shareable between nurses and robots. Fifteen tasks—such as "suctioning," "enema and fecal disimpaction," "postmortem care," and "explanations and communication with family"—were regarded as nurse-exclusive. Interview findings suggest that medical and nursing care robots may help reduce workload and supplement care for individuals living alone or requiring intensive support. However, key challenges include device safety and reliability, user and family acceptance, privacy protection, and implementation costs. Ethical consideration and clinical effectiveness must be carefully evaluated after clarifying target users, purpose, and scope of intervention. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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