TY - JOUR AU - Chaix, Benjamin AU - Bibault, Jean-Emmanuel AU - Pienkowski, Arthur AU - Delamon, Guillaume AU - Guillemassé, Arthur AU - Nectoux, Pierre AU - Brouard, Benoît PY - 2019 DA - 2019/05/02 TI - When Chatbots Meet Patients: One-Year Prospective Study of Conversations Between Patients With Breast Cancer and a Chatbot JO - JMIR Cancer SP - e12856 VL - 5 IS - 1 KW - artificial intelligence KW - breast cancer KW - mobile phone KW - patient-reported outcomes KW - symptom management KW - chatbot KW - conversational agent AB - Background: A chatbot is a software that interacts with users by simulating a human conversation through text or voice via smartphones or computers. It could be a solution to follow up with patients during their disease while saving time for health care providers. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate one year of conversations between patients with breast cancer and a chatbot. Methods: Wefight Inc designed a chatbot (Vik) to empower patients with breast cancer and their relatives. Vik responds to the fears and concerns of patients with breast cancer using personalized insights through text messages. We conducted a prospective study by analyzing the users’ and patients’ data, their usage duration, their interest in the various educational contents proposed, and their level of interactivity. Patients were women with breast cancer or under remission. Results: A total of 4737 patients were included. Results showed that an average of 132,970 messages exchanged per month was observed between patients and the chatbot, Vik. Thus, we calculated the average medication adherence rate over 4 weeks by using a prescription reminder function, and we showed that the more the patients used the chatbot, the more adherent they were. Patients regularly left positive comments and recommended Vik to their friends. The overall satisfaction was 93.95% (900/958). When asked what Vik meant to them and what Vik brought them, 88.00% (943/958) said that Vik provided them with support and helped them track their treatment effectively. Conclusions: We demonstrated that it is possible to obtain support through a chatbot since Vik improved the medication adherence rate of patients with breast cancer. SN - 2369-1999 UR - http://cancer.jmir.org/2019/1/e12856/ UR - https://doi.org/10.2196/12856 UR - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31045505 DO - 10.2196/12856 ID - info:doi/10.2196/12856 ER -