Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30064969›Full record

ArticleJMIR mental health2018

An Embodied Conversational Agent for Unguided Internet-Based Cognitive Behavior Therapy in Preventative Mental Health: Feasibility and Acceptability Pilot Trial.

Shinichiro Suganuma, Daisuke Sakamoto, Haruhiko Shimoyama

Open access · goldAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in JMIR mental health, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
40citing papers in PubMed, 4 pooled it
7.7field-weighted citation impact, top 3% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

40 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 119 citations in OpenAlex.

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  17. An Integrative Survey on Mental Health Conversational Agents to Bridge Computer Science and Medical Perspectives.Proceedings of the Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing. Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing · 2023
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Shinichiro SuganumaDepartment of Clinical Psychology, Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6944-0907
Daisuke SakamotoDivision of Computer Science and Information Technology, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2219-4198
Haruhiko ShimoyamaDepartment of Clinical Psychology, Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0103-0477
Japan Graduate School of Education University · JPHokkaido University · JP

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundRecent years have seen an increase in the use of internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy in the area of mental health. Although lower effectiveness and higher dropout rates of unguided than those of guided internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy remain critical issues, not incurring ongoing human clinical resources makes it highly advantageous.

objectiveCurrent research in psychotherapy, which acknowledges the importance of therapeutic alliance, aims to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability, in terms of mental health, of an application that is embodied with a conversational agent. This application was enabled for use as an internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy preventative mental health measure.

methodsAnalysis of the data from the 191 participants of the experimental group with a mean age of 38.07 (SD 10.75) years and the 263 participants of the control group with a mean age of 38.05 (SD 13.45) years using a 2-way factorial analysis of variance (group × time) was performed.

resultsThere was a significant main effect (P=.02) and interaction for time on the variable of positive mental health (P=.02), and for the treatment group, a significant simple main effect was also found (P=.002). In addition, there was a significant main effect (P=.02) and interaction for time on the variable of negative mental health (P=.005), and for the treatment group, a significant simple main effect was also found (P=.001).

conclusionsThis research can be seen to represent a certain level of evidence for the mental health application developed herein, indicating empirically that internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy with the embodied conversational agent can be used in mental health care. In the pilot trial, given the issues related to feasibility and acceptability, it is necessary to pursue higher quality evidence while continuing to further improve the application, based on the findings of the current research.

Indexed as

artificial intelligence technologycognitive behavioral therapyembodied conversational agentmental well‐beingpsychological distress

Identifiers

PMID30064969
PMCPMC6092592
OpenAlexW2869048854

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.