In chronic diseases, obtaining a correct diagnosis and providing the most appropriate treatments often is not enough to guarantee an improvement of the clinical condition of a patient. Poor adherence to medical prescriptions constitutes one of the main causes preventing achievement of therapeutic goals. This is generally true especially for certain diseases and specific target patients, such as children. An engaging and entertaining technology can be exploited in support of clinical practices to achieve better health outcomes. Our assumption is that a gamified session with a humanoid robot, compared to the usual methodologies for therapeutic education, can be more incisive in learning the correct inhalation procedure in children affected by asthma. In this perspective, we describe an interactive module implemented on the Pepper robotic platform and the setting of a study that was planned in 2020 to be held at the Pneumoallergology Pediatric clinic of CNR in Palermo. The study was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our long-term goal is to assess, by means of a qualitative-quantitative survey plan, the impact of such an educational action, evaluating possible improvement in the adherence to the treatment.

翻译：在慢性疾病中，获得正确诊断并提供最适宜的治疗往往不足以确保患者临床状况的改善。对医疗处方的依从性差是阻碍实现治疗目标的主要原因之一。这一情况在特定疾病及特定目标患者群体（如儿童）中尤为普遍。利用具有吸引力和娱乐性的技术辅助临床实践，有望获得更优的健康结局。我们假设，相较于常规的治疗教育方法，采用类人机器人进行游戏化互动，能更有效地帮助哮喘患儿掌握正确的吸入操作流程。基于此，我们描述了在Pepper机器人平台上实现的交互模块，以及一项原计划于2020年在巴勒莫国家研究委员会儿科肺过敏诊所进行的研究方案。该研究因COVID-19疫情被迫取消。我们的长期目标是通过定性与定量相结合的调查方案，评估此类教育干预的影响，并探究其在改善治疗依从性方面的潜在效果。