Medical-AI trial: how do people with mental illness use AI chatbots for mental health? a survey of use, expectations, and concerns (NCT07658547)

Generative-AI chatbots such as ChatGPT have quickly become a familiar partner for talking through worries and gathering information. In mental health too, some people use AI to voice concerns such as sleeplessness or anxiety. Alongside the convenience of an always-available listener, concerns are raised about wrong advice, crisis handling, and privacy.

So how do people actually in psychiatric treatment use AI chatbots, and how do they feel about them? This survey captures that from the voices of those directly affected.

Per the registry summary, this observational study surveys adults receiving psychiatric or psychotherapeutic treatment about how they use, perceive, and evaluate generative-AI chatbots for mental-health purposes.

It asks about usage patterns, expectations, experiences, perceived benefits, barriers, and concerns, with the main questions being how people with mental disorders use AI chatbots in the context of their mental health and what expectations, attitudes, and experiences they hold. The primary outcome is the percentage who have used generative AI for mental-health issues.

Participants provide electronic informed consent; the size is 150, conducted by invitation.

Mental-health use of AI chatbots is one of the most debated topics today, where the potential to widen access coexists with concerns about safety, dependence, and misinformation. Understanding, as fact, how those actually living with mental illness use AI and what they seek and fear, not only expert opinion, is a foundation for safe guidelines and support design.

That said, this study describes use and perceptions; it does not evaluate or establish the therapeutic effect or safety of AI chatbots.