A chatbot to support New Zealand young people during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evaluation of a real world roll out of an open trial (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND The number of young people in New Zealand who experience mental health challenges is increasing. As New Zealand was going into its initial COVID-19 lockdown, an ongoing digital mental health project was adapted and underwent rapid content authoring to create the Aroha chatbot. This dynamic digital support was designed with and for young people to help manage pandemic-related worry. OBJECTIVE Aroha was developed to provide practical evidence-based tools for anxiety management using cognitive behavioral therapy, and positive psychology. The chatbot included practical ideas to maintain social and cultural connection, and to stay active and well. METHODS Stay at home orders under New Zealand’s lockdown commenced on 20 March 2020. By leveraging previously developed chatbot technology and broader existing online trial infrastructure, the Aroha chatbot was launched promptly on 7 April 2020. Dissemination of the chatbot for an open trial was via a URL, feedback on experience of the lockdown and on the experience of Aroha was gathered via online questionnaires, a focus group, and from community members. RESULTS In the two weeks following the launch of the chatbot there were 393 registrations and 238 users logged into the chatbot, of whom 127 were in the target age range (13-24 years). Feedback guided iterative and responsive content authoring to suit the dynamic situation and motivated engineering to dynamically detect and react to a range of conversational intents. CONCLUSIONS The experience of the implementation of the Aroha chatbot highlights the feasibility of providing timely event-specific digital mental health support, and the technology requirements for a flexible and enabling chatbot architectural framework.

Artificial Intelligence Based Chatbots to Combat COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

“…For instance CoronaGO and Arogya setu were designed by Indian government to improve care delivery and help to its people during COVID-19 situation [7,25]. AI chatbots with speci c audience were developed for young people (2 cases) [26,27], elder people (1 cases) [28], and health care providers and their families (1 case) [29].…”

“…Three chatbots were deployed on social media including Facebook (2 cases) and Telegram (1 case). One of the chatbots, in addition to web-based, was also deployed on Facebook [27].…”

“…These chatbots by providing various mental health services to users, specially to patients in home quarantine, help to reduce the psychological effects of COVID-19 such as anxiety, distress and depression. For example, the Aroha was an AI chatbot that provided services related to management of anxiety and depression caused by COVID-19 to New Zealand citizens [27].…”

Artificial Intelligence-Based Chatbots to Combat COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

“…The characteristics of 17 chatbots are presented in Table 2. Fourteen chatbots (88.2%) were programmed to converse in English (7,(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37). Four chatbots were bilingual and supported languages such as French, Italian, Vietnamese, and Indian in addition to English.…”

“…Thirteen out of the 17 chatbots were developed for the general population, and four were designed for specific populations. Chatbots designed for specific audiences had a preventive role (25,36,38,39). Governments, large corporations (such as IBM and Amazon), and international organizations (such as WHO) produced the majority of AI chatbots aimed at the general public.…”