Robo-Pet survey review - People Bank involvement

Overview

The Being Digital team at East Sussex County Council have provided Robo-Pets to clients of Adult Social Care with early-stage dementia. As part of this pilot, they wanted to see the impact that the pet had not only on the client, but also on the carer, to see there was any benefit to the carers’ experience of supporting their client. To do this a survey will be sent to carers, which includes questions about the impact of the Robo-Pet on their role. We asked you to user test these questions, to see if they were clear, engaging, and asking the right questions.

Our user testers said:

1. The introduction to the questions about carers needs to have additional information about the purpose of the questions.
2. Change question 1 wording from ‘how helpful’ the Robo-Pet has been to something more neutral.
3. Change question 1 wording from how it has helped their ‘role and responsibilities’, as this could feel insensitive based on the demanding nature of caring.
4. The example prompts for asking what way the Robo-Pet has had impacted the carer (question 2) feel leading, and indicate caring is a more negative experience.
5. The final question regarding any other comments about their experience of the pilot should include wording to cover any other comments about the impact of the Robo-Pet too.

How we responded:

1. Included more explanation about the purpose of the questions in the introduction.
2. Changed question 1 to ‘Has the Robo-Pet made any difference to your experience of caring for the client using it?’.
3. Removed ‘role and responsibilities’ and changed to ‘experience of caring for the client’.
4. Removed prompts and changed   question 2 to ‘If you said the Robo-Pet has made a difference, please tell us how:’.
5. Adjusted the final question to ask for any other comments about the ‘impact of the Robo-Pet’ as well as ‘their experience of the Pilot’.

“The thoughtful analysis of carer questions will help East Sussex County Council find out more about how Robo-Pets are helping carers in the community” – Project Lead.