AI Chatbots & Mental Healthcare

2022-07-13
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The pandemic, the recess of economics, and the war in Europe are all factors contributing to feelings of negativity and depression. However, access to quality mental healthcare varies from country to country. In some areas, it might be hard to find a qualified professional, or the supply might be lower than the demand. All these have contributed to the rapid proliferation of mental health provider apps. Other technological advances, such as AI chatbots may play a critical role in mental healthcare in the coming future. Let’s take a look at both the benefits and limitations of this technology.


'You can leverage the benefits that AI chatbots bring to mental healthcare such as anonymity, timely support, and reduced costs.' -Yulia GavrilovaClick To Tweet

Mental Healthcare

In addition to mental health provider applications and AI chatbots, there have been other impressive steps toward mental healthcare:

  • By the end of 2020, venture investors put an impressive $1.5 billion into mental health-related startups in the USA.

  • There are more than 10 mental health unicorns (companies with a valuation of $1 billion) in the U.S.

  • 124 mental health startup deals were closed last year, compared to 69 deals in 2016.

These are great steps. However, the questions must be asked: How effective are these applications? Especially, how effective are those that use artificial intelligence?

Benefits of AI Chatbots

AI chatbots are used in many industries where customer service is of the utmost importance. Research shows that some people prefer interaction with chatbots rather than with real humans. Chatbots are able to present information immediately and are available 24/7.

#1: Anonymity

In mental healthcare, these advantages can also be vital. But these same advantages can also be vital in mental healthcare. Moreover, many people avoid accessing psychological health providers out of fear of being judged, especially when sensitive issues are involved. It has been proven that chatbots help to overcome this fear and provide help for those who need it. Chatbots are highly praised for their anonymity. For example, some patients find it easier to open up to the screen rather than to a real person.

#2: Timely Support

Another use case is for people working unconventional hours. People who work night shifts often struggle to find therapists that can accommodate them. Timely support is important for patients with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.

#3: Reduced Cost

Finally, access to mental healthcare is still considered a luxury by many. For example, in the U.S., one-hour consultations with a professional can cost between $65 and $250. Considering that effective mental health treatment is usually one to three hours per week and necessary for at least a couple of months, it’s easy to understand that the process can be inaccessible for many people. Chatbots can reduce the price of consultation by cutting expenses on traveling costs and telephone charges.

Limitations of Chatbots

Despite the benefits, there are also some limitations to using chatbots. The biggest drawback lies in the technological limitations of AI systems. Even today, chatbots often struggle to understand the nuances of human language.

#1: Reading Emotions

For therapy, correctly reading not only what’s being said but also the underlying feelings and emotions is vital for successfully obtaining desired results. Most AI systems simply cannot cope with both of these tasks at the same level as humans do. Emotions can be perceived with image or voice recognition since they are highly dependent on the context. But relying just on textual information is hard for a chatbot to orient itself.

Therefore, we cannot be sure of a chatbot’s ability to provide clear and suitable responses to a patient’s requests, nor be able to communicate and reach the core of the problem, which is unacceptable when life-threatening situations are being reported.

#2: Privacy

Another major concern connected to the use of chatbots in healthcare is privacy. Developers have to take effective measures to ensure that data sharing will not expose users to any privacy risks.

How Can Providers Improve Chatbots?

AI in mental healthcare can change the lives of millions of people. Here are some actionable insights into what can be done to make sure the users’ needs are satisfied:

  • Improve Natural Language Process (NLP) processes.

  • Self-supervised learning in AI can help improve your chatbot’s ability to understand the patient. It combines the benefits of both supervised and unsupervised learning, allowing the program to learn what one part of the input means using another part of the input. This can be perfectly applied to NLP.

  • Make it a golden rule to collect conversation success metrics and monitor them regularly. By collecting transcripts of failed conversations, you can keep track of the drawbacks of your system and constantly improve it.

  • You can also create post-conversation polls where users can evaluate the conversation.

  • Keep humans in the loop.

  • Since you know that chatbots don’t work perfectly all the time, make sure that a user who is experiencing communication problems has the ability to connect to a human professional in case of need.

Leveraging the Benefits

By implementing state-of-the-art AI methods, using effective monitoring metrics and analysis, and keeping humans in the loop when necessary, you can leverage the benefits that AI chatbots bring to mental healthcare such as anonymity, timely support, and reduced costs for the users.



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  • Artificial Intelligence

  • Health and Wellness

  • Healthcare

  • Machine Learning


  • Artificial Intelligence

  • Health and Wellness

  • Healthcare

  • Machine Learning

参考译文
AI聊天机器人和心理健康

流行病、经济衰退和欧洲的战争都是造成消极和抑郁情绪的因素。然而,获得高质量精神保健的机会因国而异。在某些领域,可能很难找到合格的专业人士,或者供大于求。所有这些都促成了心理健康服务提供商应用程序的迅速扩散。未来,AI聊天机器人等其他技术进步可能在心理健康领域发挥关键作用。让我们来看看这种技术的优点和局限性。除了心理健康提供者应用程序和AI聊天机器人,在心理健康方面还有其他令人印象深刻的步骤:这些都是伟大的步骤。然而,必须提出的问题是:这些应用程序的有效性如何?特别是,那些使用人工智能的产品效果如何?AI聊天机器人被用于客户服务至关重要的许多行业。研究表明,与真人相比,有些人更喜欢与聊天机器人互动。聊天机器人能够立即呈现信息,并且全天候可用。在精神保健领域,这些优势也至关重要。但这些优势在心理健康方面也很重要。此外,许多人因为害怕被评判,尤其是在涉及敏感问题时,而避免求助于心理健康服务提供者。事实证明,聊天机器人有助于克服这种恐惧,并为那些需要帮助的人提供帮助。聊天机器人因其匿名性而受到高度赞扬。例如,一些患者发现对着屏幕比对着真人更容易。另一个用例是工作时间非常规的人。上夜班的人往往很难找到能照顾他们的治疗师。及时的支持对抑郁、焦虑和恐慌发作的患者很重要。最后,许多人仍然认为获得精神保健是一种奢侈。例如,在美国,一个小时的专业咨询费用在65美元到250美元之间。考虑到有效的心理健康治疗通常是每周一到三个小时,并至少持续几个月,这很容易理解,这个过程对许多人来说是难以实现的。聊天机器人可以通过减少差旅费和电话费来降低咨询费用。尽管有这些好处,但使用聊天机器人也有一些限制。最大的缺陷在于AI系统的技术局限性。即使在今天,聊天机器人也常常难以理解人类语言的细微差别。对于治疗来说,正确的阅读不仅是说了什么,而且是潜在的感受和情绪,这对成功获得预期的结果至关重要。大多数人工智能系统根本无法像人类一样处理这两项任务。情绪可以通过图像或声音识别来感知,因为它们高度依赖于情境。但仅仅依靠文本信息,聊天机器人很难定位自己。因此,我们不能确定聊天机器人是否有能力对患者的请求提供清晰、合适的响应,也不能沟通并触及问题的核心,这在报告危及生命的情况时是不可接受的。与在医疗保健领域使用聊天机器人有关的另一个主要问题是隐私。开发者必须采取有效措施,确保数据共享不会让用户面临任何隐私风险。人工智能在精神保健领域可以改变数百万人的生活。通过实施最先进的AI方法,使用有效的监测指标和分析,并在必要时保持人工参与,您可以利用AI聊天机器人给心理健康带来的好处,如匿名性、及时支持和降低用户的成本。

  • 聊天机器人
  • 心理健康
  • en
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