Affiliations 

  • 1 Centre of Instructional Technology and Multimedia, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
Educ Inf Technol (Dordr), 2021;26(5):6033-6049.
PMID: 34054328 DOI: 10.1007/s10639-021-10542-y

Abstract

This study discussed and evaluated the usefulness, performance, and technology acceptance of a chatbot developed to educate users and provide health literacy. A semi-structured interview and analytic sessions were provided on Google Analytics dashboard, and the users' acceptance toward the technology was measured using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2). A total of 75 undergraduate students were involved over a total period of two months. Each respondent explored the health chatbot actively to get advice from it with a phrase that matched the chatbot's intents via mobile devices. The evaluation results showed that 73.3% of the respondents found that the chatbot can help understand several health issues and provide a good conversation. The performance evaluation also showed that the chatbot contributed a low percentage of exit, where less than 37% of users exited the application. The overall assessment showed that the developed chatbot has a significant potential to be used as a conversational agent to increase health literacy, especially among students and young adults. However, more research should be done before the technology can replace humans in a real setting.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.