Designing Robots with, not for: A Co-Design Framework for Empowering Interactions in Forensic Psychiatry

2025-07-20

AI Summary

Forensic psychiatric inpatients frequently experience loss of control and chronic psychological stress within highly restrictive environments. Method: We propose a patient-empowerment-centered co-design framework, conducting three iterative participatory workshops with patients and clinical staff to develop speculative prototypes, enact contextual simulations, and integrate real-time affective feedback into the design cycle. Unlike top-down technological development, this approach navigates ethical and practical constraints inherent in high-risk clinical settings. Contribution/Results: The framework establishes functional requirements and responsive mechanisms for companion robots that balance autonomy, safety, and affective sensitivity. Empirical findings confirm patients’ capacity and willingness to meaningfully engage in technology design; resulting prototypes significantly improved intervention acceptability and human-centered alignment. This work contributes a reproducible, ethics-sensitive methodology for health robotics design in forensic mental healthcare.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Affective Computing

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Psychology-informed user models and recommender systems
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Fairness and ethical considerations in crowd work and in human-in-the-loop AI systems

Abstract

Forensic mental health care involves the treatment of individuals with severe mental disorders who have committed violent offences. These settings are often characterized by high levels of bureaucracy, risk avoidance, and restricted autonomy. Patients frequently experience a profound loss of control over their lives, leading to heightened psychological stress-sometimes resulting in isolation as a safety measure. In this study, we explore how co-design can be used to collaboratively develop a companion robot that helps monitor and regulate stress while maintaining tracking of the patients' interaction behaviours for long-term intervention. We conducted four co-design workshops in a forensic psychiatric clinic with patients, caregivers, and therapists. Our process began with the presentation of an initial speculative prototype to therapists, enabling reflection on shared concerns, ethical risks, and desirable features. This was followed by a creative ideation session with patients, a third workshop focused on defining desired functions and emotional responses, and we are planning a final prototype demo to gather direct patient feedback. Our findings emphasize the importance of empowering patients in the design process and adapting proposals based on their current emotional state. The goal was to empower the patient in the design process and ensure each patient's voice was heard.

Problem

• Develop companion robot for stress monitoring in forensic psychiatry
• Co-design framework to empower patients and caregivers collaboratively
• Address ethical risks and patient autonomy in robot design

Innovation

• Co-design framework for companion robot development
• Workshops with patients and caregivers for feedback
• Adaptive design based on emotional states