Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Feb 12, 2026
Open Peer Review Period: Feb 12, 2026 - Apr 9, 2026
Date Accepted: May 29, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Attitudes and Needs of Healthcare Providers Toward Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Pediatric Palliative Care: A Mixed-Methods Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
While AI's transformative potential in healthcare is widely acknowledged, its application in highly sensitive, humanistic domains like PPC remains largely unexplored.
Objective:
To explore the attitudes and needs of healthcare providers on the pediatric palliative care (PPC) assisted by artificial intelligence (AI), with the goal of informing future development and implementation of AI systems in this field.
Methods:
This was an explanatory sequential mixed-methods study consisting of a nationwide cross-sectional questionnaire survey (March–April 2025) followed by qualitative semi-structured interviews (August–October 2025). The quantitative study aimed to investigate PPC healthcare providers' experiences, attitudes, and needs for the application of AI. Participants included team members of all recognized PPC teams in mainland China. The qualitative study aimed to explore in greater depth the potential future roles of AI in this field, as well as the features of an ideal AI-assisted tool for PPC. Potential interviewees were recruited from the pool of quantitative survey respondents.
Results:
Among 352 survey respondents, most (58.24%) reported moderate familiarity with AI, with large language models being the most commonly used (79.55%). Among large language model users, over half (57.50%) reported using them for clinical purposes. Attitudes were generally positive: 67.05% believed AI's benefits would outweigh drawbacks, and 78.98% considered its implementation feasible. The most desired applications were patient/family education (78.41%) and symptom management (73.01%). Interviews with 17 providers revealed three themes: (1) clinical roles and boundaries; (2) elements for clinical integration; and (3) challenges in development and deployment.
Conclusions:
This study reveals that PPC providers express positive attitudes and strong demand for AI-assisted clinical work. Furthermore, the research clarifies appropriate roles for AI, outlines elements for clinical integration, and highlights potential challenges in development and integration. This study provides evidence for the feasibility of AI application in PPC and offers guidance for the future development and deployment of AI tools.
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