PRIME: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stefan Mor­ana, Saar­land Uni­ver­sity "Valid­ity of Chat­bot Use for Men­tal Health As­sess­ment: An Ex­per­i­ment­al Study"

Abstract:
Mental disorders in young adulthood are a major public health concern. Digital tools such as chatbots reflect a promising technology to facilitate mental health assessment. However, the human-like interaction style of chatbots may induce potential biases, such as social desirable responding (SDR), and may further require more effort to complete assessments. The study aimed to investigate i) the convergent and discriminant validity of chatbots for mental health assessment, ii) the effect of assessment mode on SDR and iii) effort required by participants for assessment using chatbots compared to established modes. In a counterbalanced within-subject design, we assessed different constructs (psychological distress, Brief Symptom Inventory, problematic alcohol use) in three modes (chatbot, paper-and-pencil, web-based). 146 young adults were recruited from a research panel for a laboratory experiment. Results revealed high positive correlations of measures of the same construct across different modes indicating convergent validity of chatbot assessments. Our findings suggest that chatbots may yield valid results. Furthermore, an understanding of chatbot design trade-offs in terms of potential strengths (i.e., increased social presence) and limitations (i.e., increased effort) when assessing mental health were established.

Short Bio:
Stefan Morana is a Junior Professor of Information Systems at the Saarland University. His research focuses on the human-centered design of interactive systems for the digital transformation from the perspective of the individual, organizations, and society. More specifically, he investigates the design of assistant systems and conversational interfaces supporting the individual usage of information systems. His research has been published in journals such as the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Decision Support Systems, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Business & Information Systems Engineering, Internet Research, and Communications of the Association for Information System. Stefan is track chair of the “Design Research and Methods in IS” track at the European Conference for Information Systems since 2019 and has served as track chair as well as associate editor for major IS conferences.