A team led by psychiatric researchers and psychologists at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College built the tool, called Therabot, and the results were published on March 27 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The first clinical trial of a therapy bot that uses generative AI suggests it was as effective as human therapy for participants with depression, anxiety, or risk for developing eating disorders.
To test the bot, the researchers ran an eight-week clinical trial with 210 participants who had symptoms of depression or generalized anxiety disorder or were at high risk for eating disorders. About half had access to Therabot, and a control group did not. Participants responded to prompts from the AI and initiated conversations, averaging about 10 messages per day.
Participants with depression experienced a 51% reduction in symptoms, the best result in the study. Those with anxiety experienced a 31% reduction, and those at risk for eating disorders saw a 19% reduction in concerns about body image and weight.
These results are about what one finds in randomized control trials of psychotherapy with 16 hours of human-provided treatment, but the Therabot trial accomplished it in about half the time.
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