A Conversational AI Health Coach with Empathetic Abilities

Abstract

With the quality and acceptance of conversational agents improving in recent years, chatbots are being deployed within more and more domains. Recent solutions are significantly enhanced in terms of their naturalness and fluidity of conversations. As a result, domains of personal relevance with emotionally charged conversations such as the healthcare domain can be accessed. Young people in Nigeria suffering from an infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) or mental health problems related to this infection are additionally impacted due to their socioeconomic environment, the stigmatization of the disease, the cost of medication as well as the lack of accessible medical infrastructure, which can lead to avoidance of personal health appointments. Digital conversational agents acting as health coaches are a potential solution to those challenges, especially in the domain of mental health disorders. In addition, by combining health coach capabilities with more empathetic response generations of the conversational agent, the user interaction quality is expected to improve.