Evaluation of Chatbot for Mental Well-being

The present study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of conversational chatbot in improving mental health literacy, uptake of self-care behaviors, and mental well-being, compared to the waitlist control. This study will provide important findings for the future development and implementation of chatbots in mental health, which may increase public access to immediate mental health support. It is hypothesized that participants in the experimental condition will show (H1) better mental health literacy (H2) better improvement in self-care and self-efficacy in mental well-being, and (H3) better mental well-being, compared with participants in the control condition.Upon completing the screening and pre-evaluation questionnaire, participants will be randomly assigned to the experimental group or waitlist control group based on computer-generated random digits. They will complete 2 more sets of questionnaires, including a post-evaluation 10 days after group allocation, and a follow-up questionnaire 20 days after group allocation. In the experimental group, participants will go through one assigned chatbot each day for 10 days, with the sequence of the assigned chatbot randomized. The chatbot contents are developed by clinical psychologists and well-being promotion officers. Content includes relationships, stress, value, emotion, and positive psychology. Each chatbot can only be assessed on the day of distribution. The access link will expire upon completion and the day after distribution to prevent repeat and delay in completion. Experimental group participants can freely access all chatbots after the completion of post-evaluation and before the follow-up questionnaire is sent to them. In the waitlist control group, participants are to refrain from using the chatbot until they finished the follow-up questionnaire. All participants will be able to access the chatbot materials in an online platform after they have completed the research.

Inclusion Criteria:Adults aged 18 years old or aboveAble to read and understand Chinese and spoken CantoneseHave access to the InternetExclusion Criteria:Under 18 years oldUnable to read and understand Chinese and spoken CantoneseUnable to access the internetExisting users of the Jockey Club TourHeart+ Project and people who have participated in related research projects will be excluded from this study, as chatbots in this study were extracted from this online platform.