RESUMEN
Background: Welfare technological solutions such as social robots attempt to meet the growing needs of the healthcare sector. Social robots may be able to respond to the shortage of pharmaceutical personnel at community pharmacies. However, there is a lack of previous studies regarding the use of social robots for medication counselling purposes in a pharmacy setting. Objectives: The objective of this qualitative study was to explore pharmacists' views on the potential role of social robots in medication counselling. Methods: Pharmacists, purposively sampled based on having recent experience of counselling customers in community pharmacies in Finland, first acted as customers interacting with the social robot in a simulated setting, before taking part in a focus group where their perspectives were explored. The focus group discussions were conducted in October and November 2022. The qualitative data was transcribed and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results: The number of participants was eight in total. A main theme of how the robot may either help or harm concerning medication safety within a pharmacy setting was identified. The six sub-themes found, according to pharmacists' views on robot counselling in community pharmacies, are context, digital competence, customer integrity, interaction, pharmacists' professional role and human skills. Conclusions: According to the study findings, pharmacists experience that the social robot can offer a potential complement to a human pharmacist. The robot is seen as beneficial with respect to certain customer groups and in the light of personnel shortages, and may in the future add to trust, equality, freedom of choice and multilingualism, among other things, in the customer service situation at community pharmacies, thus improving medication safety.
RESUMEN
Impression of helpers can vary as a function of the magnitude of helping (amount of help) and of situational and motivational aspects (type of help). Over three studies conducted in Sweden and the US, we manipulated both the amount and the type of help in ten diverse vignettes and measured participants' impressions of the described helpers. Impressions were almost unaffected when increasing the amount of help by 500%, but clearly affected by several type of help-manipulations. Particularly, helpers were less positively evaluated if they had mixed motives for helping, did not experience intense emotions or empathy, or if helping involved no personal sacrifice. In line with the person-centered theory of moral judgment, people seem to form impressions of helpers primarily based on the presumed underlying processes and motives of prosociality rather than its consequences.
