Do patients prefer AI or physician responses to their questions. Based on a study in JAMA Internal Medicine by Ayers et al (2023), the answer is AI:
Of the 195 questions and responses, evaluators preferred chatbot responses to physician responses in 78.6% (95% CI, 75.0%-81.8%) of the 585 evaluations… Chatbot responses were rated of significantly higher quality than physician responses (t = 13.3; P < .001). The proportion of responses rated as good or very good quality (≥ 4), for instance, was higher for chatbot than physicians (chatbot: 78.5%,…physicians: 22.1%…).
Moreover, AI was more empathetic than physicians.
The proportion of responses rated empathetic or very empathetic (≥4) was higher for chatbot than for physicians (physicians: 4.6%…; chatbot: 45.1%.…).
The questions answered were culled from Reddit’s r/AskDocs.