The Effectiveness of NeuroBot in Alleviating Anxiety of Patients Undergoing Neurovascular Surgeries

The Effectiveness of NeuroBot in Alleviating Anxiety of Patients Undergoing Neurovascular Surgeries

The goal of this randomized controlled trial is to investigate the effectiveness of NeuroBot in alleviating anxiety of patients undergoing neurovascular procedures. The main questions it aims to answer are:

Is NeuroBot effective in alleviating anxiety? Is NeuroBot effective in enhancing patients' procedure and disease-related knowledge? Is NeuroBot effective in enhancing patients' compliance to treatment? If there is a comparison group: Researchers will compare with standard perioperative education (control group) to see if there is any difference in results.

Participants will be invited to chat with the artificial intelligence based chatbot "NeuroBot" for 6 weeks, from the date of preoperative clinic visit till 4 weeks after the surgery. The participants are allowed to access the NeuroBot at anytime anywhere, to ask surgery- related questions at their discretion.

The NeuroBot is co-developed by the neurosurgeons, nuerosurgical specialty nurses in Queen Elisabeth Hospital and AI experts from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The NeuroBot is developed based on the large language model that used machine learning algorithm and generative pretrained transformer model. Vast dataset of neurovascular surgery related information from validated sources, including DynaMed, UpToDate and textbooks were included and used for training of NeuroBot. The precision of the responses generated by NeuroBot was verified by a group of neurosurgical domain experts (neurosurgeons and experienced neurosurgical nurses).

Inclusion Criteria:

1. aged above 18 years;
2. scheduled for elective neuroendovascular surgery;
3. able to understand Chinese and read Chinese;
4. mobile device with internet capability.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. identified cognitive impairment or have difficulty in understanding study procedures, following instructions, or providing informed consent;
2. prior exposure to health chatbot to acquire health-related information in previous 3 months;
3. have neurovascular surgeries before