Designing Chatbots for Mental Health and Wellbeing
- Type:Bachelor / Master Thesis
- Supervisor:
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Problem Description:
Mental health resources, such as face-to-face psychotherapy sessions are scarce with long waiting lists. Conversational agents, e.g. in the form of chatbots, can deliver low-threshold, flexible, scalable and cost-effective interventions aiming at promoting psychological well-being. To see how this can work, check out Woebot or Wysa.
Goal of the Thesis:
There are multiple potential thesis projects in (1) writing/designing content, (2), frontend development and (3) chatbot development (with Rasa). All ideas are linked to my PHD project CADY. I'm also happy to supervise your own thesis ideas. Just send me an email if you're interested!
Introductory Reading:
- Fitzpatrick, Kathleen Kara, Alison Darcy, und Molly Vierhile. „Delivering Cognitive Behavior Therapy to Young Adults With Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety Using a Fully Automated Conversational Agent (Woebot): A Randomized Controlled Trial“. JMIR Mental Health 4, Nr. 2 (6. Juni 2017): e19.
- Becky Inkster, Shubhankar Sarda, und Vinod Subramanian. „An Empathy-Driven, Conversational Artificial Intelligence Agent (Wysa) for Digital Mental Well-Being: Real-World Data Evaluation Mixed-Methods Study“. Jmir mhealth and uhealth, 2018.
Skills Required:
Programming skills (e.g. JavaScript/Node.js, Python)
Interest in chatbots/conversational agents, natural language processing and/or mental health/wellbeing