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

TLDR

The study aimed to assess mental‑health professionals’ attitudes toward using conversational user interfaces to support patients’ wellbeing. An online survey was administered to gauge awareness and attitudes among mental‑health professionals and experts. Results showed that 65 % saw benefits, 74 % considered chatbots important, 79 % believed they help clients self‑manage, yet 86 % felt chatbots lack emotional understanding; despite limited personal use, experiences were largely satisfactory and confidence increased with years of experience.

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.