BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1644323
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Role of Artificial Intelligence in Everyday Well-BeingView all 8 articles
Attitudes Towards the Use of ChatGPT to Seek Oncological Information: A Qualitative Study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Oncology and Hemato-Oncology, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
- 2Istituto Europeo di Oncologia, Milan, Italy
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The rapid diffusion of new technologies and Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing access to information for patients with different diagnoses. The spread of ChatGPT, an OpenAI-developed tool that utilizes the GPT language model technology to generate human-like responses based on human questions, also influences how information can be acquired. In this era of technological improvements, it is important to explore people's attitudes towards the use of AI. The main aim of this study is to explore people's attitudes related to using ChatGPT to obtain new information regarding oncological diagnosis through a qualitative data collection. After reading an ad hoc scenario with an example of a conversation between ChatGPT and a hypothetical user who received an oncological diagnosis, participants were invited to complete online open questions. A thematic analysis and a Word Association Analysis were conducted on the data collected on 74 Italian participants, revealing both positive and negative emotions. Participants recognized that the use of ChatGPT could help to speed up times and to provide updated information, improving the understanding of complex medical terms. However, concerns about possible negative consequences related to an incorrect use of ChatGPT emerged from the data, in addition to difficulties in understanding the process of data elaboration or data privacy, and the impossibility of replacing the human-doctor relationship. The study underscores the necessity of implementing robust security measures and clear protocols to address concerns and enhance the trustworthiness of ChatGPT in medical contexts, helping the promotion of a safe and correct use of these technologies.
Keywords: artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, Psycho-oncology, human-computer interaction, oncology, decision-making
Received: 10 Jun 2025; Accepted: 20 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Durosini, Masiero, Strika, Mazzoni and Pravettoni. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ilaria Durosini, ilaria.durosini@unimi.it
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