Pilot Quasi-Experimental Research on the Effectiveness of the Woebot AI Chatbot for Reducing Mild Depression Symptoms among Athletes

Depression is a widespread mood disorder, causing a decrease in social roles and living standards. This research discusses the effectiveness of daily communication with the Woebot chatbot to reduce the severity of mild depression among athletes. The sample involved 84 athletes from Lishui College. The experiment found that the level of depression in the experimental group continued to decrease from the 5th to the 8th week, while the level of depression in the control group did not change significantly over the entire period of the experiment. The scholars claim that conversational agents can be considered as an additional method in the treatment and prevention of depression. This research may be interesting to school administrators to prevent depression in students, providing experimental data and proving the effectiveness of the approach. Subsequent studies will allow us to collect more data through similar surveys and regularly assess the mental health of university students.