When COVID-19 first hit, I was terrified to leave my home. As the father of three and a husband of 25 years, I felt helpless to protect my family as the narrative changed seemingly day-to-day. I knew fashioning medical masks from scarves was far from ideal, so I made masks for my family, friends, and any elderly customer that wanted one, using my 3D printer and some micron-level cloth filter material intended for residential HVAC systems. Still, I felt like I had no control over what was happening. The CDC reported in 2020 that between June 24 and 30, close to 40% of adults in the U.S. reported at least one adverse mental health concern--including anxiety, depression, substance use, and suicidal ideation, among others. UK-based researchers introduced the term "COVID-19 anxiety syndrome" in Psychiatry Research, noting avoidance, worrying, daily symptom checking, and threat monitoring as key traits.

Robots are becoming an important way to deliver health care, and personality is vital to understanding their effectiveness. Despite this, there is a lack of a systematic overarching understanding of personality in health care human robot interaction (H-HRI). To address this, the authors conducted a review that identified 18 studies on personality in H-HRI. This paper presents the results of that systematic literature review. Insights are derived from this review regarding the methodologies, outcomes, and samples utilized. The authors of this review discuss findings across this literature while identifying several gaps worthy of attention. Overall, this paper is an important starting point in understanding personality in H-HRI.