Caregiver Expectations of Interfacing With Voice Assistants to Support Complex Home Care: Mixed Methods Study

Editorial reading guide · Collaboration

Which pieces of care coordination would we welcome an assistant helping with, and which decisions should it leave to us?

Separates useful assistance imagined by caregivers from intrusive intervention. Interviews and structured ratings favored reminders and recording/retrieving care information, while unsolicited assistance attracted much less support. The seven child-caregiver accounts make the study relevant to complex home care, with the mixed population kept explicit.

Study context

22 North American adult caregivers: seven family caregivers of children with special needs, nine family caregivers of older adults, and six hired older-adult caregivers

Age / stage: Child ages not reported; child-care subset within a mixed caregiving sample

Read with three questions

1. Why were reminders and record retrieval more acceptable than unprompted intervention?
2. How did passive listening, personalization, and control affect expectations?
3. Which findings came from a mixed caregiving population and still require direct testing with child-caregiving families?

Keep the limits in view

Participants discussed possibilities rather than using a voice assistant in the study. Expectations cannot establish actual usability, reduced care burden, or safety. The small, mostly female sample mixed child, older-adult, and paid care; aggregate preferences should not be attributed to all parents or to children themselves.