ArticleNPJ digital medicine2025
Psychological, economic, and ethical factors in human feedback for a chatbot-based smoking cessation intervention.
Article in NPJ digital medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Reinforcement learning for proposing smoking cessation activities that build competencies: Combining two worldviews in a virtual coach.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2025Trial
- Evaluation of the Feasibility and Acceptability of Perfect Fit, a Virtual Coach-Based mHealth Intervention for Smoking Cessation and Physical Activity in Adults: Mixed Methods Study.JMIR human factors · 2026Article
- Responsible data selection method for algorithmic personalization of health apps: a case study on promoting mental health.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Article
- Psychological, economic, and ethical factors in human feedback for a chatbot-based smoking cessation intervention.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Integrating human support with chatbot-based behavior change interventions raises three challenges: (1) attuning the support to an individual's state (e.g., motivation) for enhanced engagement, (2) limiting the use of the concerning human resources for enhanced efficiency, and (3) optimizing outcomes on ethical aspects (e.g., fairness). Therefore, we conducted a study in which 679 smokers and vapers had a 20% chance of receiving human feedback between five chatbot sessions. We find that having received feedback increases retention and effort spent on preparatory activities. However, analyzing a reinforcement learning (RL) model fit on the data shows there are also states where not providing feedback is better. Even this "standard" benefit-maximizing RL model is value-laden. It not only prioritizes people who would benefit most, but also those who are already doing well and want feedback. We show how four other ethical principles can be incorporated to favor other smoker subgroups, yet, interdependencies exist.
Identifiers
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Registered trials
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.