Acceptability of embodied conversational agent in a health care context

Abstract

While the interest of Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) in health care context increased, the extent to which patients find ECAs acceptable should be more evaluated. Thus, in this study, we evaluated the acceptability of an ECA who conducts a clinical structured interview to make a medical diagnosis, in comparison with the same clinical structured interview presented in written form on a tablet screen. 178 patients participated to the study (102 females (57.3 %); Mean age = 46.5 years ± 12.9, range 19–64; Mean educational level = 13.3 years ± 3.1). It was showed that patients perceived globally the acceptability of the ECA higher than the tablet. This higher acceptability was linked rather to higher satisfaction than to higher usability. Moreover, the patients were more satisfied when they repeated the clinical interview with the ECA than with the tablet. Thus ECA usage could avoid the decrease of satisfaction of repeated computerized clinical interviews.