Comparing the Efficacy and Efficiency of Human and GenAI Qualitative Thematic Analyses (Preprint)

Qualitative methods are incredibly beneficial to the dissemination and implementation of new digital health interventions; however, these methods can be time intensive and slow down dissemination when timely knowledge from the data sources is needed in ever-changing health systems. Recent advancements in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and their underlying large language models (LLMs) may provide a promising opportunity to expedite the qualitative analysis of textual data, but their efficacy and reliability remain unknown.