Background and aims: Chatbots are conversational agents with the ability to communicate withusers using natural language in a way that simulates interaction with a real human. Chatbots areused in the
medical field as a tool to facilitate access to information for patients and reduce theworkload of doctors. The purpose of this study was to review the literatures to identify and classifythe areas and outcomes of using chatbots in
medical and
health domains.Method: This review of the published literatures was conducted by searching the “Web of Science”and“PubMed/Medline” databases to retrieved related articles from ۲۰۱۹ to ۲۰۲۳ years.Combination of different keywords include “chatbot”, “chat-bot”, “chat bot” AND “medic*”,“health”, “disease” was searched in selected databases. Studies investigated the implementedchatbots in
medical and
health domain were included. Review and systematic reviews, protocols,letters, non-English articles, and studies that only deal with propose and design the
chatbot andhave not been evaluated in real environment were excluded from the review. EndNote X۹ is usedto manage and code references in the conduct and reporting of the papers.Results: In this study, ۷۵۶ articles were retrieved, and after removing the unrelated and duplicatedarticles, ۳۳۳ articles were reviewed ultimately. We found that the most common use of chatbotsin the
medical and
health domains are respectively include: mental disorder/ stress, anxiety, depressionmanagement and empathic (n=۱۰۴, ۳۱.۲۳%), covid-۱۹ (n=۵۸, ۱۷.۴۲%),
disease controland management (n=۳۴, ۱۰.۲۱%), educational and learning (n=۲۸, ۸.۴۱%), physical activity/diet/ nutrition (n=۱۹, ۵.۷۰%) and others domains (pregnancy/ parenting/ mother care, obesity/diabetes, recommendation, drug management, post-surgery care, self-management bots, geneticcounseling, virtual physician and items developed for elderly care). The findings also showedthat, the reported outcomes of using chatbots in
medical and
health domains can be classified intodifferent categories like technology effectiveness, acceptance, usability, feasibility, accuracy, usertendency and etc.Conclusion: The use of chatbots in
medical and
health sciences is growing, and there is a tendencyfor using this technology for apply in different group like elderly, pregnant women, parents,physician, nurses, staff and other people. Also, according to results, the
chatbot was a functionaland innovative tool that could easily be integrated into usual
medical practice and could help patientsand professionals to tackle the
health problems.