ChatGPT Provides More Empathetic Answers than Physicians, Says Study
A study published on April 28 in JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that ChatGPT outperforms physicians when it comes to answering patient questions. The study evaluated written responses to 195 patient inquiries from two different sources - physician responses sourced from Reddit and responses generated by ChatGPT. The responses were evaluated by a panel of licensed healthcare professionals, and 79 percent of them preferred ChatGPT's answers.
According to the study, physicians' responses were deemed less acceptable in quality by the panel at a rate of 25 percent, while only 3 percent of ChatGPT's responses were rated as less acceptable. Furthermore, ChatGPT's responses were found to be more empathetic by the panel, which rated only 5 percent of physicians' responses as empathetic.
It's important to note that there was one limitation to the study. The physicians' responses were sourced from a public online forum, and the physicians may have answered differently in a clinical setting based on their established relationships with patients.
Overall, ChatGPT's ability to provide empathetic answers to patient questions is a significant advantage over physicians. Patients may feel more comfortable asking sensitive questions to an AI-powered chatbot than to a physician, and ChatGPT's responses may better convey the empathy and understanding that patients need.
