Results from user studies included in the review, including participant details, outcome studied and findings (note: n/a = not applicable)
| Source | Sample; participant number; age* | Outcomes considered | Findings/conclusions |
| Cheetham et al 33 | n/a (reported elsewhere) | Robot implementability; user evaluation; technical issues | Robots successful in providing telepresence; some technical issues |
| Fels et al 34 | Chronic renal failure; n=3; 9–12 years | Behavioural outcomes (communication, concentration, initiative); perceptions of the robot (by children, parents, and staff); academic performance | Communication and initiative behaviours occurred at high frequencies for short durations, concentration behaviours remained consistently high; trend towards less communication interactions over time; most reported positive perceptions of robot |
| Kimura et al 35 | Hospitalised children; unknown; 1–19 years | Children’s mood; how children interacted with robot; human companion in the interaction; user evaluation; communications between staff, children and parents | Children’s mood improved; human companion enhanced the child–robot interaction; communications between inpatient children and staff increased |
| Looije et al 28 | Children without identified health conditions; n=24 (20); 8–9 years | User evaluation (fun, acceptance, empathy, trust); performance (efficiency, learning effect) | Children valued physical and virtual iCat more than text interface, interacted faster with iCat character compared with text interface; All interfaces rated highly; Suggests iCat useful to implement and test |
| Marti et al 21 | Disabilities; n=5; 6–11 years | Usability; acceptability; suitability to achieve learning objectives | Children were interested in engaging with robot and understood tasks; several technical issues; robot played a different role in group vs. individual sessions and stimulated different interactions; Robot not perceived as a social agent due to its functional design |
| Bernd et al 18 | Intellectual disabilities; n=3; 3–5 years | Playfulness of children; children’s functioning; user evaluation (by the therapists) | Playfulness scores varied—no significant difference between robot and traditional therapy sessions; robot evaluation scores both increased (2/3 children), and decreased (1/3); Therapist evaluations suggested robot appreciated by therapist and children, robot added value but better matching to children’s needs required |
| Díaz et al 15 | Children without identified health conditions; n=37†; 11–12 years | Children’s interaction with the robots (attitudes, preferences, behaviours, attributions and roles) | Robot features effect children’s preferences, perceptions and expectations, which influences their interactions via role attribution; different responses were elicited for each robot: appearance and purpose of robot should be considered during design |
| Klein et al 43 | Developmental disabilities; n=3; 3–5 years | Playfulness of child; functional behaviour of child; subjective assessment of the robot by the therapist | Robot partly met needs of the children and therapists; positive impact on play found for two children; robot may be useful in supporting children with developmental disabilities by enriching play, but long-term effect unknown |
| Lehmann et al 16 | Cognitive and social disabilities; n=10; average 8.3 years | Educational objectives achieved by the children; comparison of the interactions with different robots | Only preliminary analyses presented: robots appear to have positive influence on development; preferences and level of success for the different play scenarios and robots differed by child; potential for robots as therapeutic tools |
| Lu et al 44 | Unknown; unknown; 3–7 years | Children’s enjoyment of robot companion | n/a (study not completed) |
| Ros Espinoza et al 45 | Diabetes; N and age reported elsewhere | Discusses observations, challenges and lessons learnt from previous studies | Child–robot studies require careful thought |
| Ros et al 46 | Diabetes; n=2; 7 and 11 years | Observations of the child–robot interactions | Robot should be designed to adapt to user’s capabilities; children enjoyed the robot |
| Saint-Aimé et al 20 | Children without identified health conditions; n=13; 3–5 years | Quality of the child–robot interaction | Robot did not achieve companion goal; encounter may have been stressful; questionnaire data contradicted observational data; suggested improvements for robot and study protocol |
| Csala et al 47 | Hospitalised children; n=3; 4–14 years | Could robot be implemented; acceptance of robot; user evaluation of the robot | Robot accepted by the children, positive feedback from children, staff and parents; robot appropriate for environment; suggested improvements |
| Looije et al 29 | Children without identified health conditions; n=11 (10); average 11.1 years | Learning/performance; attention; motivation | No differences between robot and virtual agent on learning task or motivation; robot attracted more attention than virtual agent, preferred by the children; robot has potential as learning companion |
| Besio et al 19 | Cerebral palsy; n=4; 4–8 years | Prompts provided by therapist during the child–robot interaction (intensity, type, goal) | Number of prompts to help child understand how to play with robot decreased across sessions; prompts for playfulness and engaging the child remained constant; suggests robot not of added value in therapy, as robot did not meet play needs of the children |
| Calderita et al 50 | Upper limb motor deficits; n=6; 3–7 years | Motor function; satisfaction (of child); acceptability of the robot/user evaluation (from children, parents and staff) | Only preliminary results presented: physical appearance of robot satisfactory; children found sessions enjoyable and motivating; staff found sessions positive and recorded data was useful; a high level of engagement achieved, with motivation and adherence to treatment maintained |
| Csala et al 51 | Hospitalised children; unknown N and age | n/a | Initial feedback positive |
| De Greef et al 52 | Hospitalised children; n=13; 7–11 years | Interaction and engagement with the robot; preferences of activities to engage in with the robot | Only preliminary results presented: typically children were engaged with the robot; children had varying approaches to switching between activities |
| Okita26 | Hospitalised children; n=36; 6–16 years | Pain ratings (by child, and by parent); children’s and parents’ anxiety (positive and negative emotional traits) | Greater decreases in pain and anxiety for children who interacted with the robot together with their parents than those without their parents |
| Alemi et al 24 | Cancer; n=11 (6); 6–10 years | Anxiety; anger; depression, | Children in experimental group had reductions in anxiety, anger and depression compared with control |
| Baroni et al 54 | Diabetes; n=70; 9–13 years | Suggestions from children with diabetes, siblings and parents about how robot could provide support | Robot used for entertainment, self-management support, knowledge, increasing self-confidence and motivation, as a sensitive listener, and to attract attention |
| Calderita et al 55 | Children without identified health conditions; n=35; 4–9 years | Perception of the robot as a social entity or artificial machine (by child); robot behaviour and attitude (by independent observer); observations of the interaction | Children perceived robot as a social rather than artificial entity; interaction was usually fluent; enjoyment and neutral states were the most frequently displayed, with boredom present at the beginning of sessions; most of the time children played with robot |
| Fridin et al 27 | Cerebral palsy and children without identified health conditions; n=25 (23); mean age 5.7 (cerebral palsy); 3.3 years (without identified conditions) | Interaction level; motor performance | Children with cerebral palsy had higher interaction level with the robot but worse motor performance compared with typically developing children; robot was feasible for use with pre-school aged children, able to engage and motivate children with cerebral palsy to engage in exercises |
| Kozyavkin et al 56 | Cerebral palsy; n=6; 4–9 years | User evaluation of the robot (via interview with children and their parents) | All children liked rehabilitation sessions with the robot and would like it in future sessions; suggestions for improvement offered by parents |
| Kruijff-Korbayová et al 30 | Diabetes; n=59; 11–14 years | Effect of off-activity talk (OAT) on perception of the robot, interest in further engagement and adherence to nutritional diary | No effect of OAT on children’s perception of robot or adherence to nutritional diary; OAT and NOAT conditions combined had increased adherence compared with control condition; OAT condition more interested to have another session with robot compared with no OAT condition |
| Özkul et al 61 | Hearing impaired; n=31; 7–16 years | Recognition rate/error rate by platform and sign, user evaluation | Some differences between preferred robot; some signs were better recognised than others; children with different levels of hearing impairment and sign language ability were motivated to play the games; Support for use of game to increase recognition rate |
| Vélez et al 62 | Children (non-specified); n=3; 3–6 years | Empathy and apathy level (specifically by measuring aspect, voice and movements) | Child–robot interaction in all cases manifested as empathy (not apathy), suggested children found the robot appearance likeable |
| Albo-Canals et al 63 | Unknown | n/a | Enhancing child–robot interaction engagement through cloud connectivity can improve use of robot in treatment |
| Jeong et al 66 | Hospitalised children; n=4; 5–10 years | Behaviours of children and parents during robot and virtual character interactions | Preliminary qualitative results suggest preference for robot but more data and analyses required |
| Köse et al 67 | Hearing impaired; n=31; 7–16 years | Recognition rate/error rate by platform and sign; user evaluation | Some differences between preferred robot; some signs better recognised than others; children with different levels of hearing impairment and sign language ability were motivated to play with robots; physical embodiment of robot can improve children’s performance, engagement and motivation |
| Rahman et al 69 | Cerebral palsy; n=2; 9 and 13 years | Clinical experiences; challenges encountered | Potential for use of robot in rehabilitation; challenges identified (eg, difficulty for the robot in interpreting child with speech impediment, need for therapist assistance, etc) |
| Alemi et al 25 | Cancer; n=11 (10); 7–12 years | Anxiety; anger; depression | Children in the experimental group showed reductions in anxiety, anger and depression, compared with control |
| Al-Taee et al 70 | Diabetes; n=37; 6–16 years | Acceptability of robot; user evaluation of the robot (what features were desirable) | Robot accepted by patients and parents, some differences between age groups; ability for blood glucose advice was desirable; companion function was less desirable |
| Bonarini et al 72 | Neurodevelopmental disorders; n=11†; 3 years and 6–10 years | Observed behaviours/responses of the children | Preliminary support that robot elicits social interaction, operational behaviours and emotional responses and robot may be integrated into neurodevelopmental disorder therapy |
| Børsting et al 73 | Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome; n=9 (2); 12–16 years | Access to school and social participation; robot implementation; user evaluation of robot (with children, parents and teachers) | Generally positive feedback provided, suggested robot could connect child to school and social relations; some technical issues |
| Cañamero et al 74 | Diabetes; n=17; unknown age | Discusses user evaluation and implementability | Initial pilot interactions positive |
| Díaz-Boladeras et al 75 | Inpatient and outpatient children; n=unknown†; 2–13 years | Implementation of the robot; interactions with the robot; user evaluation of the robot | Robot found to mediate and facilitate interactions between different participants; Robot took on role of distractor, toy and companion |
| Larriba et al 22 | Hospitalised children; unknown N and age | Technical functioning of the robot; observations of the robot interactions | Wireless communication between robot and Android device was achieved; some issues remain (eg, lack of robustness and reactivity) |
| Looije et al 17 | Diabetes; n=17; 6–10 years | Evaluation of the robot and scenarios used; how the child interacted with the robot; perceptions of the robot (from children, parents, medical staff) | Children, parents, and medical staff had positive experiences with robot; five user profiles were derived to aid further personalisation; conclusive evidence from analysis of specific metrics was not found |
| Malik et al 76 | Cerebral palsy; n=2; 5 and 14 years | Gross motor functional measurement, time up and go and trail making test tests; human–robot interaction attention | Only preliminary results presented: suggests children demonstrated positive responses; study contributed a measurement for attention during human-robot interaction |
| Martí Carillo et al 23 | Cerebral palsy | Time costs (eg, how long it took to position the robot, place auxiliary aids, help robot keep pace); implementation | Some time costs and issues; physiotherapists willing to implement the robot; patients seemed engaged |
| Neerincx et al 78 | Diabetes; n=3, unknown, n=55†; 10–14 years and 8–11 years | Words and behaviours that indicate sentiment and emotion of Dutch and Italian children | Children responded positively to the robot; some cultural differences observed; highlights need for robot to accommodate cultural differences |
| Robles-Bykbaev et al 79 | Cerebral palsy and communication disorders; n=29; unknown age | Performance in phonological, morphological and semantic areas of speech therapy | Children adapted quickly to the robot; children in robot group scored better in phonological area than control group; similar results observed in the morphological and semantic areas too, but not statistically significant |
| Sequeira et al 80 | Hospitalised children; unknown N and age | Robot integration into environment; human–robot interaction; acceptability; user evaluation (children, staff, parents, visitors) | Acceptance of the robot was high; suggests that social robots may be positively used in socially difficult environments |
| Swift-Spong et al 32 | Overweight; n=22 (18); 11–14 years | Enjoyment of physical activity; intrinsic motivation for physical activity; activity levels; user evaluation (reactions to the robot back stories); other measures not discussed in this paper | No differences found between robot with different backstories; participants reacted positively to the robot as exercise buddy; no differences in preintervention and postintervention assessments, although trend towards increased intrinsic motivation was observed |
| Yasemin et al 82 | Dental; n=33; 4–10 years | Heart rate; affect; treatment willingness | Only preliminary results presented: suggests anxiety and pain during dental treatment was reduced by robot |
| Blanson Henkemans et al 14 | Diabetes; n=27; 7–14 years | Self-determination determinants (autonomy, competence, relatedness); pleasure; motivation to play quiz; diabetes knowledge; engagement with robot | Diabetes knowledge improved in both robot groups compared with control; personalised robot group higher on self-determination theory determinants, rated robot more pleasurable, answered more diabetes questions correctly, more engaged, more motivated to play the quiz compared with neutral robot group |
| Martí Carillo et al 85 | Cerebral palsy; n=39†; unknown and 3–16 years | Phase 1: roles, requirements and acceptability of the robot; phase 2: robot performance/fulfilment of system requirements; perceptions of robot; therapeutic benefit | Phase 1: effective uses of robot established; key roles determined; observations of patients indicated improved compliance with therapist instructions and increased motivation with robot; phase 2: ongoing |
| Van den Heuvel et al 86 | Physical disabilities; n=11; 18 months−19 years | Effectiveness of assistive technology; level of playfulness; user evaluation; feasibility; usability; barriers | Robot had positive effect on achieving predetermined goals; children evaluated the interaction positively; playfulness slightly increased; several usability/technical issues identified (eg, instability of the robot). |
*Entries with an †indicate there were multiple studies published in the publication. Numbers in brackets are the number of participants that were analysed.