Designing Chatbots for Person-Centered Care: Insights from Contraceptive Care in Kenyan Pharmacies

Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in sub-Saharan Africa face barriers to contraceptive access and lack decision-support resources tailored to their needs. Many Kenyan AGYW seek contraceptive services in the pharmacy setting, but experience stigma, judgment, and privacy concerns that make it difficult to seek guidance from pharmacists. This work examines how chatbots could integrate into Kenya’s pharmacy setting to support AGYW’s contraceptive decision-making. We presented chatbot prototypes in co-design workshops with AGYW and pharmacy workers to evoke reflections on perceived opportunities, concerns, and preferable futures of chatbot-supported care. Our findings highlight expectations that a chatbot could offer private, non-judgmental spaces for information seeking while shifting trust and authority away from pharmacists, revealing tensions surrounding the distribution of authority, reliance, and control among AGYW, pharmacists, and the chatbot. In response to these tensions, we contribute design guidelines for chatbots to navigate community beliefs and promote shared decision-making by AGYW and pharmacists. More broadly, this work extends research on sensitive health chatbots for youth by showing how such tools embedded within a service delivery setting surface distinct considerations for stakeholder roles and person-centered care.