Increasing acceptance of medical AI: The role of medical staff participation in AI development.

BACKGROUND: Medical artificial intelligence (AI) in varying degrees has exerted significant influence on many medical fields, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little is known regarding how to address the reluctance of medical staff to use AI technology. While recent research has highlighted the importance of medical staff participation in the development of AI, the current understanding of influence of medical staff participation on acceptance of AI is limited. OBJECTIVES: To provide insights into the mechanism that how medical staff participation impacts on the medical staff's acceptance of AI and to examine the moderating effect of speciesism. METHODS: This study was conducted from 6th August to 3rd September. Data was collected from doctors and nurses and a total of 288 valid questionnaires were obtained. Smart PLS 3.2.8 was used as partial least square (PLS) software to validate the research model. RESULTS: The study determined that medical staff participation had a significant impact on acceptance of medical AI-IDT (ß = 0.35, p ≤ 0.001) and acceptance of medical AI-ADT (ß = 0.44, p ≤ 0.001). The results also show that AI self-efficacy and AI anxiety have significant mediating effects and speciesism has significant moderating effects among the theoretical model. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides insights into ways to explore influence factors of acceptance of AI based on user participation perspective. The results indicate that medical staff participation enhances acceptance of medical AI through the cognitive path (i.e., AI self-efficacy) and the affective path (i.e., AI anxiety). These results have practical implications for how organizations assist the staff to accommodate themselves to AI technology in the future.

Is psychological flexibility a mediator between perceived stress and general anxiety or depression among suspected patients of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19)?

This study is aimed to investigate the status of general anxiety and depression among suspected patients of COVID-19 and explore whether psychological flexibility can serve as a mediator between perceived stress and general anxiety or depression. Total of 180 participants completed the online questionnaire which comprised demographic information, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7), the 9-item Patients Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II) and the Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire (CFQ). Statistical methods including correlation analysis, multiple linear regression analysis and structural equation model were used in this study. The scores of 23.9% (43/180) and 34.4% (62/180) of participants were higher than the cut points of GAD-7 and PHQ-9 respectively. Psychological flexibility was significantly correlated with perceived stress, general anxiety and depression. Multiple regression analyses showed the possible mediation effect of psychological flexibility between perceived stress and general anxiety or depression. The structural equation model confirmed that psychological flexibility partially mediated between perceived stress and general anxiety or depression. Our findings suggested the potential benefit of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a psychological support approach in suspected patients of COVID-19 because ACT targets psychological flexibility.