Development, Implementation, and Usability Evaluation of a Chatbot to Effectively Provide Information on the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine

Abstract The Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has been shown to provide protection against HPV infections, which can cause genital warts and some forms of cancer. Lack of information about the virus and the vaccine represents one of the major challenges to reaching national HPV vaccination goals. Advancements in natural language processing have facilitated the effectiveness of chatbots in interacting with users. Chatbots have been increasingly employed in health and medical care settings, assisting physicians during consultations, helping with behavior change issues, and supporting patients and the elderly in their daily lives. A potential opportunity to improve vaccination rates is to provide health information through unconventional methods by utilizing chatbots. This work describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of a chatbot called GARDI, created to disseminate information about HPV infection and vaccine. The Chatbot Usability Questionnaire (CUQ) was employed to evaluate GARDI. The mean CUQ score was 66.6, which is marginally below the suggested benchmark for evaluation of chatbots. An examination of CUQ subscales indicated that GARDI was considered to be easy to use and navigate, provided useful, appropriate, and informative responses, and welcoming in nature.