Chatbot features for anxiety and depression: A scoping review.

Chatbots can provide valuable support to patients in assessing and guiding management of various health problems particularly when human resources are scarce. Chatbots can be affordable and efficient on-demand virtual assistants for mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression. We review features of chatbots available for anxiety or depression. Six bibliographic databases were searched including backward and forwards reference list checking. The initial search returned 1302 citations. Post-filtering, 42 studies remained forming the final dataset for this scoping review. Most of the studies were from conference proceedings (62%, 26/42), followed by journal articles (26%, 11/42), reports (7%, 3/42), or book chapters (5%, 2/42). About half of the reviewed chatbots had functionality targeting both anxiety and depression (60%, 25/42), whereas 38% (16/42) targeted only depression, 38% (16/42) anxiety and the remaining addressed other mental health issues along with anxiety and depression. Avatars or fictional characters were rarely used in these studies only 26% (11/42) despite their increasing popularity. Mental health chatbots could benefit in helping patients with anxiety and depression and provide valuable support to mental healthcare workers, particularly when resources are scarce. Real-time personal virtual assistance fills in this gap. Their role in mental health care is expected to increase.

Attitudes and Practice of Health Care Providers Toward Cancer Screening: A Cross-sectional Multicenter Study, Saudi Arabia.

BACKGROUND: Screening is a cancer prevention measure for groups who are asymptomatic, and diagnosis is a medical test for groups who are symptomatic. The occupational privilege of health care providers (HCPs) is expected to play a positive role in cancer screening practices. Therefore, this study aimed to assess perceptions and personal attitudes of HCPs regarding their decision to screen for cancer in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. DESIGN: A cross-sectional multicenter survey study was conducted. A well-designed and validated questionnaire was distributed to the HCPs at three tertiary hospitals in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. RESULTS: Out of 900 health care providers who received the questionnaire, 372 completed it. Two-thirds, 247 (66.4%) of them were nurses and the rest were physicians and the mean age was 34.1 ± 7.1 years. Regardless of gender, profession, or age, the overall rate of belief in the importance of regular cancer screening was high; 91.4%. The number of participants who did not screen for colonoscopy was significantly higher than those who screened. The number of females in the age group of between 45 and 54 years who screened with mammography was significantly higher than non-screened. In a similar way, male HCPs above 54 years who got themselves screened for Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) were significantly higher than those who did not. CONCLUSIONS: Findings of the current research and existing evidence specifically for the Saudi community indicated a need to raise awareness, emphasizing the role of HCPs in motivating themselves, their families, and their patients to implement various cancer screening programs.

Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Community Pharmacists in Relation to Dispensing Antibiotics Without Prescription in Sudan: A Cross-sectional Study.

Background: Dispensing antibiotics without prescription (DAwP) is a widespread practice, especially in developing countries, contributing to antibiotic resistance. Community pharmacists play a significant role in promoting rational use of antibiotics by refraining from DAwP, and providing drug information to patients. This study aimed to evaluate community pharmacists' knowledge, attitude and practice, and to assess the factors behind DAwP. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2020 among random sample of community pharmacists in Sudan. Online semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The association between dependent and independent variables was assessed using Chi-square test; a P-value less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Of the 1217 pharmacists who participated, the majority were female (n = 645, 53%). Most pharmacists have a B. Pharm degree (n = 1026, 84%) and less than 5 years' experience (n = 718, 59%). Notably, the majority of community pharmacists have good knowledge (n = 735, 61.7%), which is significantly associated with years of experience (P < 0.00). More than half (n = 623, 52.2%) of the pharmacists have above average score of practice. Nearly all the pharmacists who participated have a positive attitude in relation to DAwP (n = 1204, 98.9%). More than half of the pharmacists were DAwP for tonsillitis (n = 817, 67%), wound infection (n = 766, 62.9%), and urinary tract infection (n = 664, 54%). The leading factor behind DAwP was the low socioeconomic status of the patients (n = 624, 51%). Additionally, 47% of the pharmacists (n = 572) thought that they were knowledgeable enough to DAwP. Conclusion: Despite their positive attitude and average level of knowledge regarding DAwP, Sudanese community pharmacists frequently are DAwP for tonsillitis. Low patients' socioeconomic status was the leading factor behind DAwP. Accordingly, extensive work from health authorities to improve the accessibility and affordability of the health system as well as the development of an antibiotic stewardship program are required to diminish DAwP.

Acute pericarditis complicated with pericardial effusion as first presentation of COVID-19 in an adult sudanese patient: A case report.

Acute pericarditis is an uncommon presentation of COVID-19. Here, we described a case of a 50-year-old male patient who presented with chest pain without fever or cough and diagnosed with acute pericarditis complicated by pericardial effusion due to COVID-19 after exclusion of other causes and received supportive treatment and improved over two weeks.

Maternal low-intensity psychosocial telemental interventions in response to COVID-19 in Qatar: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

INTRODUCTION: As COVID-19 is spreading, new psychological health problems are suspected to be emerging among pregnant women. Higher maternal mental health distress, including perinatal anxiety, depression, and COVID-19-specific phobia, is supposed to be increasing during the pandemic, which impacts pregnant women's health and their infants and calls for intervention. Due to the social distancing protocols posed by the pandemic, telemental health interventions have fast become the most common form of psychosocial support for maternal mental health. However, there is no evidence of the effectiveness of maternal low-intensity psychosocial telemental interventions in improving mental health outcomes. The trial's objective is to evaluate the clinical efficacy of telemental low-intensity psychosocial interventions in pregnant and postpartum women attending the Women Wellness and Research Centre in Qatar in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The clinical trial is randomized in which pregnant women will be assigned equally through block randomization between two arms: (1) a control group and (2) an intervention group. The primary endpoint is the perinatal psychological distress, including perinatal depression, anxiety, and COVID-19 phobia in their third trimester; the secondary, tertiary, fourth, and fifth endpoints will be in the postnatal period (3-5 weeks, 2-4 months, 5-7 months, and 8-10 months). This trial involves pregnant women in their second trimester with no mental health illness history who communicate in English and Arabic and consent to participate. A sample size of 58 (29 participants per arm) is targeted. DISCUSSION: This study will provide recommendations about the efficacy of low-intensity psychosocial maternal telemental interventions to be implemented as a preventive service. TRIAL REGISTRATION: 2a-ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04594525 . Registered on October 20, 2020.

An Evolutionary Bootstrapping Development Approach for a Mental Health Conversational Agent.

Conversational agents are being used to help in the screening, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of common mental health disorders. In this paper, we propose a bootstrapping approach for the development of a digital mental health conversational agent (i.e., chatbot). We start from a basic rule-based expert system and iteratively move towards a more sophisticated platform composed of specialized chatbots each aiming to assess and pre-diagnose a specific mental health disorder using machine learning and natural language processing techniques. During each iteration, user feedback from psychiatrists and patients are incorporated into the iterative design process. A survival of the fittest approach is also used to assess the continuation or removal of a specialized mental health chatbot in each generational design. We anticipate that our unique and novel approach can be used for the development of conversational mental health agents with the ultimate goal of designing a smart chatbot that delivers evidence-based care and contributes to scaling up services while decreasing the pressure on mental health care providers.