Background: Chatbots have the potential to increase people's access to quality health care. However, the implementation of chatbot technology in the health care system is unclear due to the scarce analysis of publications on the adoption of chatbot in health and medical settings.
Objective: This paper presents a protocol of a bibliometric analysis aimed at offering the public insights into the current state and emerging trends in research related to the use of chatbot technology for promoting health.
Methods: In this bibliometric analysis, we will select published papers from the databases of CINAHL, IEEE Xplore, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science that pertain to chatbot technology and its applications in health care. Our search strategy includes keywords such as "chatbot," "virtual agent," "virtual assistant," "conversational agent," "conversational AI," "interactive agent," "health," and "healthcare." Five researchers who are AI engineers and clinicians will independently review the titles and abstracts of selected papers to determine their eligibility for a full-text review. The corresponding author (ZN) will serve as a mediator to address any discrepancies and disputes among the 5 reviewers. Our analysis will encompass various publication patterns of chatbot research, including the number of annual publications, their geographic or institutional distribution, and the number of annual grants supporting chatbot research, and further summarize the methodologies used in the development of health-related chatbots, along with their features and applications in health care settings. Software tool VOSViewer (version 1.6.19; Leiden University) will be used to construct and visualize bibliometric networks.
Results: The preparation for the bibliometric analysis began on December 3, 2021, when the research team started the process of familiarizing themselves with the software tools that may be used in this analysis, VOSViewer and CiteSpace, during which they consulted 3 librarians at the Yale University regarding search terms and tentative results. Tentative searches on the aforementioned databases yielded a total of 2340 papers. The official search phase started on July 27, 2023. Our goal is to complete the screening of papers and the analysis by February 15, 2024.
Conclusions: Artificial intelligence chatbots, such as ChatGPT (OpenAI Inc), have sparked numerous discussions within the health care industry regarding their impact on human health. Chatbot technology holds substantial promise for advancing health care systems worldwide. However, developing a sophisticated chatbot capable of precise interaction with health care consumers, delivering personalized care, and providing accurate health-related information and knowledge remain considerable challenges. This bibliometric analysis seeks to fill the knowledge gap in the existing literature on health-related chatbots, entailing their applications, the software used in their development, and their preferred functionalities among users.
International registered report identifier (irrid): PRR1-10.2196/54349.
Keywords: AI; artificial intelligence; bibliometric analysis; chatbots; health care; health promotion.
©Zhao Ni, Mary L Peng, Vimala Balakrishnan, Vincent Tee, Iskandar Azwa, Rumana Saifi, LaRon E Nelson, David Vlahov, Frederick L Altice. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (https://www.researchprotocols.org), 15.02.2024.