A Systematic Review of Virtual Health Assistants in Preventive Cancer Care Communication (Preprint)

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

BACKGROUND Virtual health assistants (VHAs), interactive digital programs that emulate human communication, are being increasingly used in healthcare to improve patient education, care, and to reduce burden on healthcare providers. VHAs have the potential to promote cancer equity through facilitating patient engagement, providing round-the-clock access to information, and reducing language barriers. However, it is unclear to what extent audience-centeredness is being considered in the development of cancer-related applications. OBJECTIVE This systematic literature review aims to identify whether VHAs used in cancer prevention and screening are developed using audience-centered strategies and what those strategies are. METHODS Four online databases (Medline, Academic Search Premier, Embase, Web of Science) were searched to identify peer-reviewed, English-language, published articles on cancer prevention and screening interventions using VHAs. Articles were first screened for titles and abstracts, and then for full texts. Eligible articles were then synthesized to collect bibliographic data and identify strategies used for audience-centered intervention development. RESULTS Initially, the database search resulted in 1055 articles. After removing duplicates, screening for titles, and abstract, 17 articles were eligible for analysis. Six major strategies were identified for audience-centered VHA development: 1) gender and race concordance, 2) user feedback, 3) preintervention needs exploration, 4) theoretical framework, 5) information customization, and 6) VHA features customization. CONCLUSIONS The systematic review identified the audience-centered development practices currently being used for VHA-based interventions in preventive cancer care. The majority of the studies included processes to diversify and segment the intended audience, focused on medically underrepresented population groups, and implemented strategies to be culturally sensitive to the population of interest. CLINICALTRIAL N/A