Best Practices for Designing Chatbots in Mental Healthcare – A Case Study on iHelpr

This paper outlines the design and development of a chatbot called iHelpr for mental healthcare that 1) administers self-assessment instruments/scales, 2) provides wellbeing and self-help guidance and information, all within a conversational interface. Chatbots are becoming more prevalent in our daily lives, with bots available to provide the user with daily weather forecasts, book holidays, and even converse with a virtual therapist. It is predicted that users may soon prefer to complete tasks using a conversational interface that are traditionally done through a webpage or mobile application. In the context of mental healthcare, demand exceeds supply, waiting lists are ever growing, and populations in rural communities still struggle to access mental healthcare. Chatbots can be utilised to improve and broaden access to mental healthcare. When designing chatbots for mental healthcare, there are further considerations, such as managing risk and ethical considerations. Furthermore, usability and the design of conversational flow are important factors to consider when developing chatbots for any domain. This paper outlines best practices and experiences extrapolated from developing the iHelpr chatbot.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Gillian Cameron

David Cameron

Gavin Megaw

Raymond Bond

Maurice Mulvenna

Siobhan O’Neill

Cherie Armour

Michael McTear

Conference

Publication date: July 2018

Publication date (Print): July 2018

Pages: 1-5

Affiliations

[0001]Ulster University

Belfast, N. Ireland

[0002]Inspire Workplaces

Belfast, N. Ireland

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2018.129

SO-VID: 1a03ac95-827e-42db-ba57-67055d56b15b

Copyright statement: © Cameron et al. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. Proceedings of British HCI 2018. Belfast, UK.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of the 32nd International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number: 32

Conference location: Belfast, UK

Conference date: 4 - 6 July 2018

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Human Computer Interaction Conference

Product

Product Information: 1477-9358BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2018.129

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

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H. TrinhR. AsadiT. Bickmore 2017 Designing Health Conversations with Relational Agents In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems ACM
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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Amir Shevat 2017 Designing Bots: Creating Conversational Experiences O’Reilly Media, Inc

[2] R. BhaktaM. Savin-BadenG. Tombs 2014 Sharing Secrets with Robots? 2295

[3] H. CandelloM. VasconcelosC. Pinhanez 2017 Evaluating the conversation flow and content quality of a multi-bot conversational system In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems ACM

[4] Chatbottest 2018 Chatbottest - The free guide for you to understand what is your chatbot doing wrong [online] Available at: http://chatbottest.com/

[5] S. CohenT. KamarckR. Mermelstein 1994 Perceived stress scale Measuring stress: A guide for health and social scientists

[6] H. CramerJ. Thom 2017 Moving Parts surrounding Conversational UX In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems 492 497)ACM

[7] C.A. EspieS.D. KyleP. HamesM. GardaniL. FlemingJ. Cape 2014 The Sleep Condition Indicator: a clinical screening tool to evaluate insomnia disorder BMJ open 4 3)e004183

[8] K.K FitzpatrickA. DarcyM. Vierhile 2017 Delivering cognitive behavior therapy to young adults with symptoms of depression and anxiety using a fully automated conversational agent (Woebot): a randomized controlled trial JMIR mental health 4 2 e19

[9] A. FølstadP.B. Brandtzæg 2017 Chatbots and the new world of HCI Interactions 24 4 38 42

[10] M. KavakliM. LiT. Rudra 2012 ’Towards the development of a virtual counselor to tackle students’ exam stress’, Journal of Integrated Design and Process Science 16 1 5 26

[11] K. KroenkeR.L. SpitzerJ.B. Williams 2001 The phq‐9. Journal of general internal medicine 16 9 606 613

[12] A. MinerA. ChowS. AdlerI. ZaitsevP. TeroA. DarcyA. Paepcke 2016 Conversational Agents and Mental Health Theory-Informed Assessment of Language and Affect ACM 123

[13] R.J. MooreR. ArarG.J. RenM.H. Szymanski 2017 Conversational UX Design In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems 492 497)ACM

[14] M MulvennaJ. BogerR. Bond 2017 Ethical by Design - A Manifesto In: European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics 2017 (ECCE 2017) Umeå, Sweden ACM Digital Library

[15] NHS 2018 Five steps to mental wellbeing - NHS. UK [online] Available at: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/improve-mental-wellbeing/[Accessed 5 Apr. 2018]

[16] Poncho 2018 Wake Up Weather Retrieved January 22 2018 from http://poncho.is

[17] J.B. SaundersO.G. AaslandT.F. Babor, De la J.R. FuenteM. Grant 1993 Development of the alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT) WHO collaborative project on early detection of persons with harmful alcohol consumption‐II. Addiction 88 6 791 804

[18] R.L. SpitzerK. KroenkeJ.B. WilliamsB. Löwe 2006 A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder: the GAD-7. Archives of internal medicine 166 10 1092 1097

[19] The IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems Ethically Aligned Design: A Vision for Prioritizing Human Well-being with Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, Version 2 IEEE 2017 http://standards. ieee.org/develop/indconn/ec/autonomous_ systems.html

[20] H. TrinhR. AsadiT. Bickmore 2017 Designing Health Conversations with Relational Agents In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems ACM

[21] M. VasconcelosH. CandelloC. Pinhanez and dos T. Santos 2017 Bottester: Testing Conversational Systems with Simulated Users In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems ACM

[22] F.W. WeathersB.T. LitzT.M. KeaneP.A. PalmieriB.P. MarxP.P. Schnurr 2013 The PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5). Scale available from the National Center for PTSD at www.ptsd.va.gov