Background: Asthma-related deaths in the United Kingdom are the highest in Europe, and only 30% of patients access basic care. There is a need for alternative approaches to reaching people with asthma to provide health education, self-management support, and better bridges to care.
Objective: This study aimed to examine patients' interest in using a chatbot for asthma and to identify factors that influence engagement. Automated conversational agents (specifically, mobile chatbots) present opportunities for providing alternative and individually tailored access to health education, self-management support, and risk self-assessment. But would patients engage with a chatbot, and what factors influence engagement?
Methods: We present results from a patient survey (N=1257) developed by a team of asthma clinicians, patients, and technology developers, conducted to identify optimal factors for efficacy, value, and engagement with an asthma chatbot.
Results: Results indicate that most adults with asthma (53%) are interested in using a chatbot. The patients most likely to do so are those who believe their asthma is more serious and are less confident in their self-management. Results also indicate enthusiasm for 24/7 access, personalization, and for WhatsApp (Meta) as the preferred access method (compared to app, voice assistant, SMS text messaging, or website).
Conclusions: Obstacles to uptake include security and privacy concerns and skepticism of technological capabilities. We present detailed findings and consolidate these into 7 recommendations for developers to optimize the efficacy of chatbot-based health support.
Keywords: AI; WhatsApp; artificial intelligence; asthma; chatbot; conversational agent; digital health; psychological needs; self-determination theory.
© Laura Moradbakhti, Dorian Peters, Jennifer K Quint, Björn Schuller, Darren Cook, Rafael A Calvo. Originally published in JMIR Human Factors (https://humanfactors.jmir.org).