Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Nov 23, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Nov 23, 2022 - Jan 18, 2023
Date Accepted: May 15, 2023
Date Submitted to PubMed: Aug 1, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
“She Actually Sounds Like a Real Person” - Exploring Young Adults’ Views About Aroha: Chatbot For Stress Associated With The COVID-19 Pandemic
ABSTRACT
Background:
In March 2020, New Zealand was plunged into its first nationwide lockdown to halt the spread of COVID-19. Our team rapidly adapted an existing chatbot platform to create Aroha - a wellbeing chatbot to address the stress experienced by young people aged 13-24. Aroha was made available nationally within two weeks of the lockdown and continued to be available throughout 2020.
Objective:
To evaluate Aroha with young adults to assess the acceptability of the chatbot format, relevance of content and identify areas for improvement.
Methods:
Qualitative in-depth interviews with young adults using semi-structured and in situ demonstration of Aroha to elicit immediate feedback. Interviews were recorded transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis assisted by NVivo.
Results:
15 young adults (median age 20 years; SD = 3.17;13 female and two were male, all tertiary students) were interviewed in person. Participants spoke of the challenges of living through the lockdown while able to find silver linings. Aroha was well liked for sounding like a ‘real person’ akin to a friendly peer rather than an authoritative adult or counselor. The chatbot was praised for including content that went beyond traditional mental health advice. Participants wanted a more sophisticated conversational interface where they could express themselves in free text. Software bugs were disliked. There were several suggestions for how to make Aroha more relevant and suitable to diverse range of users.
Conclusions:
Chatbots are an acceptable format to scale up the delivery of public mental health and wellbeing-enhancing strategies. We make several recommendations for others interested in designing and rolling out menta health chatbots to better support young people. Clinical Trial: N/A
Citation
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