# Expectation vs. Reality: Attitudes Towards a Socially Assistive Robot in Cardiac Rehabilitation
## 5 Discussion
### Patients  
Taking into account that this study considers a long-term interaction with a social assistive robot, several constructs were evaluated so as to know the opinion and the future requirements of the platform with the aim of improving the performance and interaction between users (patients and clinicians) and the robot. For the patient group, an intervention and control condition were designed to compare the expectation and perception regarding the role of a social robot in cardiac rehabilitation. This was performed by means of a UTAUT questionnaire, showing remarkable results. As observed in Figure 5, the perceived trust is higher in the intervention group, than in the control group who expressed low confidence in the robot, where statements such as \"not trustable\" and \"I would trust more in human therapists\" were found. This is an expected reaction associated to the lack of experience and contact with the robot. However, not all patients expressed negative impressions towards the robot: there  
Figure 6: Likert scale distribution for each construct of the acceptance and perception questionnaire applied to therapists. were found answers such as \"I think is an appropriate approach\", \"I would be monitored all the time\" or \"It supports the patients' needs, as it contributes to the continuous and satisfactory improvement\". This positive perception is endorsed by participants from the intervention group, who expressed a higher perceived trust to the robot. This indicator is important because the trust in the robot will influence the continuous use of the system in the future [12]. The utilitarian factor, which encloses ease of use (EU), perceived utility (PU), and usefulness (U), is fundamental for the engagement in long-term relationships [12]. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that users who did not perceive the robot as useful, stopped using it after the initial tests [45]. These categories showed differences between both conditions. For ease of use (EU), the intervention group perceives more ease of use than the control group. This is due to the time that these patients spent interacting with robot, where they have the opportunity to realize how complex the interaction with the robotic platform can be, and after a period of time, feel comfortable performing the therapy in presence of the social agent. As patients in the control group have a limited knowledge of the system and its functionality, it is difficult to understand the complexity of the use of the platform. Regarding the utility and the benefits that the system could provide in rehabilitation of patients, it was evidenced a higher perceived utility in the intervention group than in the control group. This result was expected, as patients that have the opportunity to interact with the robot during the complete rehabilitation process, can evidence the benefits of having the company of social agent during the treatment. During the therapies, they expressed to be motivated and encouraged to perform better (\"I'm very encouraged to complete the rehabilitation\", \"The robot motivates me to exercise well\" or \"This is a novel tool that could help any kind of rehabilitation\"). Although control patients perceive a high degree of utility, it can be evidenced that after the interaction, this expectation is overcame. Finally, the usefulness construct is mostly focused on the perception that patients have of the system and its functionality (e.g., robot interventions, adaptability, interface, manipulation, etc.). In this case, the same pattern as the previous categories is presented. The intervention group attributes more usefulness to the system than the control group. Patients expressed: \"I would like to have the opportunity to interact with the robot again\" and that \"the robot was beneficial to the development of the therapies\". These results reflect the positive impact that the platform provided and the potential that it might have in future cardiac therapies.