Human-Therapeutic Chatbot Interaction Analysis, on the Example of Fido

Karkosz, Stanisław; Michałowski, Jarosław M.; Sanna, Katarzyna; Szczepaniak, Norbert; Konat, Barbara

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-06394-7_53

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The chatbot uses machine learning models for intelligent user intent detection and close-ended input methods (such as choosing 1 option from a list). It was developed using iterative co-development with focus groups consisting of therapists and potential users (for more information, see [ 18 ]). Moreover, external therapists provided quality assurance for all therapeutic methods used by the chatbot, while software engineers used standard testing procedures.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We previously used the LPS [ 18 ] to assess the perceived ability of Fido to communicate in a pragmatically sound manner. The scale consists of 4 separately scored items with answers on a percentage scale (0%-100%): “What percentage of overall chatbot statements were adequate?” “What percentage of overall chatbot statements were neutral (neither adequate nor inadequate)?” “What percentage of overall chatbot statements were inadequate?” “In what percentage have you been feeling understood by a chatbot?”…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To address that need, our team initiated the development of Fido—the first Polish therapy chatbot—that aims to provide mental health support to adolescents and young adults struggling with anxiety and depression. Our previous research on the interaction between humans and Fido showed that it is considerably user-friendly [ 18 ]. However, Fido still required an efficacy study, which is presented in this article along with the exploratory analysis of human–therapy chatbot interactions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A previous study on human-chatbot interactions using Fido provided satisfactory results, suggesting that Fido is pleasant to use; however, it hasn’t been optimized yet and required further development in the area of user experience (UX) [ 18 ]. After its UX optimization, Fido has been ready to use in an efficacy study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Effectiveness of a Web-based and Mobile Therapy Chatbot on Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Subclinical Young Adults: Randomized Controlled Trial

Karkosz¹,

Szymański²,

Sanna³

et al. 2024

JMIR Form Res

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background There has been an increased need to provide specialized help for people with depressive and anxiety symptoms, particularly teenagers and young adults. There is evidence from a 2-week intervention that chatbots (eg, Woebot) are effective in reducing depression and anxiety, an effect that was not detected in the control group that was provided self-help materials. Although chatbots are a promising solution, there is limited scientific evidence for the efficacy of agent-guided cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) outside the English language, especially for highly inflected languages. Objective This study aimed to measure the efficacy of Fido, a therapy chatbot that uses the Polish language. It targets depressive and anxiety symptoms using CBT techniques. We hypothesized that participants using Fido would show a greater reduction in anxiety and depressive symptoms than the control group. Methods We conducted a 2-arm, open-label, randomized controlled trial with 81 participants with subclinical depression or anxiety who were recruited via social media. Participants were divided into experimental (interacted with a fully automated Fido chatbot) and control (received a self-help book) groups. Both intervention methods addressed topics such as general psychoeducation and cognitive distortion identification and modification via Socratic questioning. The chatbot also featured suicidal ideation identification and redirection to suicide hotlines. We used self-assessment scales to measure primary outcomes, including the levels of depression, anxiety, worry tendencies, satisfaction with life, and loneliness at baseline, after the 2-week intervention and at the 1-month follow-up. We also controlled for secondary outcomes, including engagement and frequency of use. Results There were no differences in anxiety and depressive symptoms between the groups at enrollment and baseline. After the intervention, depressive and anxiety symptoms were reduced in both groups (chatbot: n=36; control: n=38), which remained stable at the 1-month follow-up. Loneliness was not significantly different between the groups after the intervention, but an exploratory analysis showed a decline in loneliness among participants who used Fido more frequently. Both groups used their intervention technique with similar frequency; however, the control group spent more time (mean 117.57, SD 72.40 minutes) on the intervention than the Fido group (mean 79.44, SD 42.96 minutes). Conclusions We did not replicate the findings from previous (eg, Woebot) studies, as both arms yielded therapeutic effects. However, such results are in line with other research of Internet interventions. Nevertheless, Fido provided sufficient help to reduce anxiety and depressive symptoms and decreased perceived loneliness among high-frequency users, which is one of the first pieces of evidence of chatbot efficacy with agents that use a highly inflected language. Further research is needed to determine the long-term, real-world effectiveness of Fido and its efficacy in a clinical sample. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05762939; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05762939; Open Science Foundation Registry 2cqt3; https://osf.io/2cqt3

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Effectiveness of a Web-based and Mobile Therapy Chatbot on Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Subclinical Young Adults: Randomized Controlled Trial

Karkosz¹,

Szymański²,

Sanna³

et al. 2024

JMIR Form Res

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Effectiveness of a Web-based and Mobile Therapy Chatbot on Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Subclinical Young Adults: Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

Karkosz¹,

Szymański²,

Sanna³

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BACKGROUND Recent years have brought forth an increase in the need for providing specialized help for people with depressive and anxiety symptoms, particularly for teenagers and young adults. There is evidence that chatbots are effective in reducing depression and anxiety in a two-week intervention, an effect that was not detected in the control group that was provided with self-help materials. Although it seems that chatbots are a promising solution, there is limited scientific evidence for the efficacy of agent-guided CBT outside the English language, especially for highly inflected languages. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to measure the efficacy of Fido, a therapy chatbot that uses the Polish language. It targets depressive and anxiety symptoms using Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy techniques. METHODS We conducted a two-arm, open-label RCT on 81 participants with subclinical depression or anxiety recruited via social media. Participants were divided into two groups: experimental (that received a fully-automated Fido chatbot) and control (that received a self-help book). Both intervention methods addressed topics such as general psychoeducation and cognitive distortions identification and modification via socratic questioning. The chatbot also featured suicidal ideation identification and redirection to suicide hotlines. We used self-assessment scales to measure depression, anxiety, worry tendencies, satisfaction with life and loneliness at baseline, after 2 weeks intervention and at 1-month follow-up. We also controlled engagement and frequency of usage. RESULTS There was no difference in anxiety and depressive symptoms at the enrollment and the baseline measurement. After intervention, depressive and anxiety symptoms were reduced in both groups (chatbot: N=36, control: N=38), which remained stable at 1-month follow-up. There was no loneliness difference after intervention in both groups, however in-depth exploratory analysis provided evidence that there was a decline among participants that had been using Fido more frequently. Both groups used their intervention technique with similar frequency, however the control group (mean 117.57 minutes, SD 72.40) spent more time on the intervention than the Fido group (mean 79.44 minutes, SD 42.96). CONCLUSIONS We didn’t manage to replicate previous findings from Woebot studies, as both arms yielded therapeutic effects. However, such results stand in line with other Internet interventions research. Fido provides sufficient help in reducing anxiety and depressive symptoms. It also managed to decrease perceived loneliness among high-frequency users, which is one of the first pieces of evidence of chatbot efficacy with agents that use a highly inflected language. Further research is needed to determine the long-term, real-world effectiveness of Fido and its efficacy in a clinical sample. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov Registry: NCT05762939 (retrospective). Open Science Foundation Registry: 2cqt3 (prospective).

show abstract

Human-Therapeutic Chatbot Interaction Analysis, on the Example of Fido

Cited by 2 publications

References 7 publications

Effectiveness of a Web-based and Mobile Therapy Chatbot on Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Subclinical Young Adults: Randomized Controlled Trial

Effectiveness of a Web-based and Mobile Therapy Chatbot on Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Subclinical Young Adults: Randomized Controlled Trial

Effectiveness of a Web-based and Mobile Therapy Chatbot on Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Subclinical Young Adults: Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About