On-Demand Virtual Health Counselor for Delivering Behavior-Change Health Interventions

Amini, Reza; Lisetti, Christine L.; Yasavur, Ugan; Rishe, Naphtali

doi:10.1109/ichi.2013.13

Cited by 28 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The systematic search resulted in a limited number (8) of studies. Moreover, these studies addressed a wide range of topics, from physical attributes [ 18 ], architecture [ 19 ], route planning [ 20 ], nonverbal behavior [ 21 ], virtual museum guide [ 22 ], and empathy [ 23 ], to theoretical models [ 24 ] and articulation rates [ 25 ]. None of the systematically selected studies provided a high-level picture of the capabilities of ECAs with regard to support delivery.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Guided Web-Based Interventions: Scoping Review on User Needs and the Potential of Embodied Conversational Agents to Address Them

Scholten¹,

Kelders²,

Gemert-Pijnen³

2017

J Med Internet Res

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BackgroundWeb-based mental health interventions have evolved from innovative prototypes to evidence-based and clinically applied solutions for mental diseases such as depression and anxiety. Open-access, self-guided types of these solutions hold the promise of reaching and treating a large population at a reasonable cost. However, a considerable factor that currently hinders the effectiveness of these self-guided Web-based interventions is the high level of nonadherence. The absence of a human caregiver apparently has a negative effect on user adherence. It is unknown to what extent this human support can be handed over to the technology of the intervention to mitigate this negative effect.ObjectiveThe first objective of this paper was to explore what is known in literature about what support a user needs to stay motivated and engaged in an electronic health (eHealth) intervention that requires repeated use. The second objective was to explore the current potential of embodied conversational agents (ECAs) to provide this support.MethodsThis study reviews and interprets the available literature on (1) support within eHealth interventions that require repeated use and (2) the potential of ECAs by means of a scoping review. The rationale for choosing a scoping review is that the subject is broad, diverse, and largely unexplored. Themes for (1) and (2) were proposed based on grounded theory and mapped on each other to find relationships.ResultsThe results of the first part of this study suggest the presence of user needs that largely remain implicit and unaddressed. These support needs can be categorized as task-related support and emotion-related support. The results of the second part of this study suggest that ECAs are capable of engaging and motivating users of information technology applications in the domains of learning and behavioral change. Longitudinal studies must be conducted to determine under what circumstances ECAs can create and maintain a productive user relationship. Mapping the user needs on the ECAs’ capabilities suggests that different kinds of ECAs may provide different solutions for improving the adherence levels.ConclusionsAutonomous ECAs that do not respond to a user’s expressed emotion in real time but take on empathic roles may be sufficient to motivate users to some extent. It is unclear whether those types of ECAs are competent enough and create sufficient believability among users to address the user’s deeper needs for support and empathy. Responsive ECAs may offer a better solution. However, at present, most of these ECAs have difficulties to assess a user’s emotional state in real time during an open dialogue. By conducting future research with relationship theory–based ECAs, the added value of ECAs toward user needs can be better understood.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Guided Web-Based Interventions: Scoping Review on User Needs and the Potential of Embodied Conversational Agents to Address Them

Scholten¹,

Kelders²,

Gemert-Pijnen³

2017

J Med Internet Res

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“…We identified five systems within the domain of mental health. [50][51][52][53][54] Three of these studies were RCTs covering two ECA systems. The SimSensei system discussed in a prior section was used to deliver PTSD therapy in two studies.…”

Section: Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The other system was an ECA that used a technique called motivational interviewing for health behavior change of alcohol consumption. 51 They assigned a group of university student participants (n ¼ 51) to interact with either an empathetic or nonempathetic condition and found that participants were more likely to interact with the empathetic system and the empathetic system scored higher on their Likert-scale measures for attitude, intention to use, perceived enjoyment, perceived ease of use, perceived sociability, perceived usefulness, social presence, trust, social influence, and anthropomorphism.…”

Section: Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Systematic Review of Health Dialog Systems

et al. 2019

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Background Health dialog systems have seen increased adoption by patients, hospitals, and universities due to the confluence of advancements in machine learning and the ubiquity of high-performance hardware that supports real-time speech recognition, high-fidelity text-to-speech, and semantic understanding of natural language. Objectives This review seeks to enumerate opportunities to apply dialog systems toward the improvement of health outcomes while identifying both gaps in the current literature that may impede their implementation and recommendations that may improve their success in medical practice. Methods A search over PubMed and the ACM Digital Library was conducted on September 12, 2017 to collect all articles related to dialog systems within the domain of health care. These results were screened for eligibility with the main criteria being a peer-reviewed study of a system that includes both a natural language interface and either end-user testing or practical implementation. Results Forty-six studies met the inclusion criteria including 24 quasi-experimental studies, 16 randomized control trials, 2 case–control studies, 2 prospective cohort studies, 1 system description, and 1 human–computer conversation analysis. These studies evaluated dialog systems in five application domains: medical education (n = 20), clinical processes (n = 14), mental health (n = 5), personal health agents (n = 5), and patient education (n = 2). Conclusion We found that dialog systems have been widely applied to health care; however, most studies are not reproducible making direct comparison between systems and independent confirmation of findings difficult. Widespread adoption will also require the adoption of standard evaluation and reporting methods for health dialog systems to demonstrate clinical significance.

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“…The literature indicated that the agent's character model should be three dimensional to better convey body language and should be designed to limit 'robotic' characteristics which may distract the patient and reduce their ability to personify the character [1]. Of course, it is very important that the user interface goes unnoticed by users as a result of its ease of use [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting a New Intelligent Virtual Face on a Medical Treatment Advice System to Improve Adherence

Baker

Richards

2014

Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Interactive Entertainment

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The eHealth website, eADVICE (electronic Advice and Diagnosis Via the Internet following Computerised Evaluation), is part of a research project that provides treatment advice to sufferers of paediatric incontinence problems who are on a medical specialist's waiting list. eHealth systems including eADVICE have problems getting patients to adhere to their advice, particularly over long treatment periods. This costs the health system and is detrimental to their health. This paper reports a project to design an agent-based (virtual character) prototype alternative of the existing test website that seeks to generate a stronger bond with the patient, similar to the relationship that exists between doctors and patients. It is hoped that this can improve and sustain the patient's motivation and adherence to their treatment as well as to usage of the website.

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On-Demand Virtual Health Counselor for Delivering Behavior-Change Health Interventions

Cited by 28 publications

References 30 publications

Self-Guided Web-Based Interventions: Scoping Review on User Needs and the Potential of Embodied Conversational Agents to Address Them

Self-Guided Web-Based Interventions: Scoping Review on User Needs and the Potential of Embodied Conversational Agents to Address Them

A Systematic Review of Health Dialog Systems

Putting a New Intelligent Virtual Face on a Medical Treatment Advice System to Improve Adherence

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