Who Wants to Have an AI Therapist? Acceptance of Using Artificial Intelligence for Mental Health Interventions Among Clinicians, Patients and the General Community

Abstract

The integration of AI-based digital technologies in mental healthcare represents a transformative shift, especially with regard to chatbots and avatar-based interventions. A central component of the success of AI-based digital mental health interventions has to do with the level of acceptance of this new technology: the degree to which stakeholders perceive a technology as useful, user-friendly and worth adopting. We aimed to establish the level of acceptance of AI-based digital mental health interventions (AI chatbot, AI avatar-based interventions) compared with the acceptance levels of teletherapy via videoconferencing among clinicians, patients and a representative community sample (i.e., potential future patients). We also explored the extent to which these differences towards these technologies might be explained by individuals' attitudes towards AI in general. Clinicians (N = 658), patients (N = 451) and US census-based community sample (N = 520) completed standardised measures of everyday artificial intelligence use, general attitudes towards AI and acceptability of digital technology use for mental health interventions. We found that community participants are most optimistic about AI-based mental health tools (chatbots and avatars), whereas clinicians consistently express more scepticism, especially regarding usability. In our sample, general attitudes towards AI (both positive and negative) were highly associated with acceptance of chatbot and avatar-based interventions, more than their professional role or demographic identity. These findings might carry clinical implications for the design, deployment and integration of these technologies into mental health services.

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