Can Chatbots Help Support a Person’s Mental Health? Perceptions and Views from Mental Healthcare Professionals and Experts

Abstract

The objective of this study was to understand the attitudes of professionals who work in mental health regarding the use of conversational user interfaces, or chatbots, to support people’s mental health and wellbeing. This study involves an online survey to measure the awareness and attitudes of mental healthcare professionals and experts. The findings from this survey show that more than half of the participants in the survey agreed that there are benefits associated with mental healthcare chatbots (65%, p < 0.01). The perceived importance of chatbots was also relatively high (74%, p < 0.01), with more than three-quarters (79%, p < 0.01) of respondents agreeing that mental healthcare chatbots could help their clients better manage their own health, yet chatbots are overwhelmingly perceived as not adequately understanding or displaying human emotion (86%, p < 0.01). Even though the level of personal experience with chatbots among professionals and experts in mental health has been quite low, this study shows that where they have been used, the experience has been mostly satisfactory. This study has found that as years of experience increased, there was a corresponding increase in the belief that healthcare chatbots could help clients better manage their own mental health.

Covid Connect: Chat-Driven Anonymous Story-Sharing for Peer Support

“…Conversational agents, or chatbots, have been introduced to aid in suicide prevention [4,18] and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) [12]. In a study conducted by Sweeney et al, professionals who work in mental health view chatbots' importance in supporting mental health and wellbeing to be relatively high (74%, p < .01) [29]. However, it is important to note that chatbots are not a substitute for the care provided by a licensed professional [31].…”

“…Commercially, mental health chatbots mainly target individuals with depression and anxiety. As previously mentioned, chatbots can be seen to relieve certain barriers, such as stigma against mental health services [29], and provide round-the-clock help for those in need. One method mental health chatbot creators have adopted to make chatbots more accessible is to incorporate them into social media apps like Facebook Messenger [6,10].…”

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