An empathic GPT-based chatbot to talk about mental disorders with Spanish teenagers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a GPT-based chatbot designed to engage Spanish teenagers in discussions about mental disorders, aiming to increase awareness through empathetic and controlled conversations.

Contribution

It presents a novel chatbot system combining controlled and open dialogues to facilitate mental health awareness among teenagers using GPT-3.

Findings

Young people show interest in the chatbot system.

The system can adapt conversations based on user sensitivity.

Potential to improve mental health awareness in adolescents.

Abstract

This paper presents a chatbot-based system to engage young Spanish people in the awareness of certain mental disorders through a self-disclosure technique. The study was carried out in a population of teenagers aged between 12 and 18 years. The dialogue engine mixes closed and open conversations, so certain controlled messages are sent to focus the chat on a specific disorder, which will change over time. Once a set of trial questions is answered, the system can initiate the conversation on the disorder under the focus according to the user's sensibility to that disorder, in an attempt to establish a more empathetic communication. Then, an open conversation based on the GPT-3 language model is initiated, allowing the user to express themselves with more freedom. The results show that these systems are of interest to young people and could help them become aware of certain mental disorders.