In-Situ exploration of emotion regulation via smart clothing: an empirical study of healthcare workers in their work environment

ABSTRACT

Healthcare personnel suffer from an increased risk of stress, burnout, and depression due to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies show that interactive smart textiles help people alleviate their emotions. In this research, we investigate how to utilise interactive textiles to help healthcare workers mitigate their negative feelings. We have designed a smart t-shirt that encourages its wearers to perform body movements to enhance their positive emotions, stimulated by vibrotactile and audio feedback mechanisms. We demonstrate our smart t-shirt’s utility by asking healthcare workers (including physicians and nurses) to use it for five consecutive days. Our prototype design supports using it anywhere, including work, home, and other places. We evaluated our smart t-shirt prototype for emotion regulations at work for healthcare workers through an in-situ user study conducted at three hospitals. Results show that using the smart t-shirt positively impacts the healthcare workers’ immediate emotion regulation when they experienced emotion fluctuation and provided a more positive attitude towards their work. We conclude by analysing the potential factors that influence emotions and outline the design space of e-textiles for emotion regulation in real-life use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Behaviour & Information Technology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)