Examining the role of ChatGPT in promoting health behaviors and lifestyle changes among cancer patients
Abstract
Purpose: This study aims to investigate the role of ChatGPT in promoting health behavioral changes among cancer patients. Methods: A quasi-experiment design with qualitative approach was adopted in this study, as the ChatGPT technology is novel, and many people are unaware of it. The participants included outpatients at a public hospital. An experiment was carried out, where the participants used ChatGPT for seeking cancer related information for two weeks, which is then followed by focus group (FG) discussions. A total of 72 outpatients participated in ten focus groups. Results: Three main themes with 14 sub-themes were identified reflecting the role of ChatGPT in promoting health behavior changes. Its prominent role was observed in developing health literacy, promoting self-management of conditions through emotional, informational, motivational support. Three challenges including privacy, lack of personalization, and reliability issues were identified. Conclusion: Although ChatGPT has a huge potential in promoting health behavior changes among cancer patients, its ability is minimized by several factors such as regulatory, reliability, and privacy issues. There is a need for further evidence to generalize the results across the regions.
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LLM-enabled chatbots may assist with symptom triage and patient education, including lifestyle-related counseling.
“LLM-enabled chatbots may assist with symptom triage and patient education, including lifestyle-related counseling.40,41”
From Artificial Intelligence in Oncology: Practical Applications Across Clinical Care, Scholarship, and Translation. (2026) · cites this paper as [41]
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- Authors
- Alanezi, F.
- Affiliations
- Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (SA)
- Corresponding author
- Alanezi, Fahad
- ORCID
- Alanezi, Fahad
- Venue
- Nutrition and Health
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2024-04-03
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 739-748
- ISSN
- 0260-1060 (ISSN-L)
- 2047-945X
- OpenAlex
- W4393901516
- Cited by
- 24
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 1
- FWCI
- 2.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Nutrition and Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Health Informatics › Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
- Keywords
- ChatGPT, large language models, cancer patients, health behavior change, health literacy, self-management, cancer information seeking, privacy concerns, AI reliability, personalization
- MeSH terms
- Generative Artificial Intelligence, Adult, Aged, Female, Health Promotion, Humans, Life Style, Male, Middle Aged, Motivation, Neoplasms, Health Behavior, Focus Groups, Qualitative Research, Health Literacy
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