Examining Patient Engagement in Chatbot Development Approaches for Healthy Lifestyle and Mental Wellness Interventions: Scoping Review

Abstract

Background Chatbots are growing in popularity as they offer a range of potential benefits to end users and service providers. Objective Our scoping review aimed to explore studies that used 2-way chatbots to support healthy eating, physical activity, and mental wellness interventions. Our objectives were to report the nontechnical (eg, unrelated to software development) approaches for chatbot development and to examine the level of patient engagement in these reported approaches. Methods Our team conducted a scoping review following the framework proposed by Arksey and O’Malley. Nine electronic databases were searched in July 2022. Studies were selected based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data were then extracted and patient involvement was assessed. Results 16 studies were included in this review. We report several approaches to chatbot development, assess patient involvement where possible, and reveal the limited detail available on reporting of patient involvement in the chatbot implementation process. The reported approaches for development included: collaboration with knowledge experts, co-design workshops, patient interviews, prototype testing, the Wizard of Oz (WoZ) procedure, and literature review. Reporting of patient involvement in development was limited; only 3 of the 16 included studies contained sufficient information to evaluate patient engagement using the Guidance for Reporting Involvement of Patients and Public (GRIPP2). Conclusions The approaches reported in this review and the identified limitations can guide the inclusion of patient engagement and the improved documentation of engagement in the chatbot development process for future health care research. Given the importance of end user involvement in chatbot development, we hope that future research will more systematically report on chatbot development and more consistently and actively engage patients in the codevelopment process.

Adapting and Evaluating an Artificial Intelligence-Based Chatbot through Patient and Stakeholder Engagement to Provide Information for Different Health Conditions: Master Protocol for an Adaptive Platform Trial (the MARVIN Chatbots) (Preprint)

“…Finally, very little engagement of stakeholders, including patients and health care professionals, has led to poor usability and low adoption of many digital health interventions [ 26 ]. In the context of chatbot development, a scoping review investigating patient engagement revealed limited involvement of patients and insufficient reporting of the relevant activities [ 27 ]. Among the 16 studies included, only 8 mentioned patient engagement, with just 3 offering adequate details on the methods and approach used.…”