Almalki Manal
Department of Health Informatics, Faculty of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Jazan University, Box 82726, Jazan, Jazan Province, Saudi Arabia, Email:
Acta Inform Med. 2020 Sep;28(3):218-223. doi: 10.5455/aim.2020.28.218-223.
Health chatbots are increasingly being utilized in healthcare to combat COVID-19. However, few studies have explored the perception and willingness of end-users toward COVID-19-related chatbots. Furthermore, no studies have been conducted in Saudi Arabia.
This paper explored 166 end-users' perceived utilities of health chatbots in Saudi Arabia, and how their characteristics affect their perceptions.
We conducted a quantitative descriptive study by implementing an online survey. The survey asked 20 questions on participants' demographics and their perception of health chatbots' usefulness.
We found that users were more willing to use health chatbots to seek general information about COVID-19 (82.5%) over seeking information regarding COVID-19 medical treatments (72.3%). Furthermore, participants with undergraduate degrees tend to use them to learn how to prevent COVID-19's spread (P = 0.015), to self-track COVID-19 symptoms (P = 0.028), and to seek information about medication (P = 0.035) in comparison to those who had postgraduate degrees. Participants who frequently searched for health information on the internet were more likely to look for nearby medical services using health chatbots (P = 0.023). Lastly, participants who provided any sort of healthcare services information were more likely to self-assess COVID-19 symptoms by using health chatbots (P = 0.036).
Participant awareness and use of health chatbots were low; however, most had positive perceptions of these emerging technologies and displayed willingness to use them. Further research is needed to capture the real-world usability of these novel technologies by employing more rigid methodological designs (e.g, field trials).
健康聊天机器人在医疗保健领域越来越多地被用于抗击新冠疫情。然而，很少有研究探讨终端用户对新冠疫情相关聊天机器人的看法和意愿。此外，沙特阿拉伯尚未开展此类研究。
本文探讨了沙特阿拉伯166名终端用户对健康聊天机器人的感知效用，以及他们的特征如何影响其认知。
我们通过开展在线调查进行了一项定量描述性研究。该调查就参与者的人口统计学信息及其对健康聊天机器人有用性的看法提出了20个问题。
我们发现，与寻求新冠疫情医疗治疗信息（72.3%）相比，用户更愿意使用健康聊天机器人来获取有关新冠疫情的一般信息（82.5%）。此外，与拥有研究生学位的参与者相比，拥有本科学位的参与者倾向于使用它们来了解如何预防新冠疫情传播（P = 0.015）、自我跟踪新冠疫情症状（P = 0.028）以及寻求药物信息（P = 0.035）。经常在互联网上搜索健康信息的参与者更有可能使用健康聊天机器人查找附近的医疗服务（P = 0.023）。最后，提供过任何类型医疗保健服务信息的参与者更有可能使用健康聊天机器人自我评估新冠疫情症状（P = 0.036）。
参与者对健康聊天机器人的认知和使用程度较低；然而，大多数人对这些新兴技术持积极看法，并表示愿意使用它们。需要进一步开展研究，通过采用更严格的方法设计（如实地试验）来了解这些新技术在现实世界中的可用性。
