Up to 61 percent of Doctoralia users acknowledge that they value resorting to or have already resorted to AI chatbots when faced with emotional doubts. At the same time, 53 percent of the psychiatrists participating in the survey indicate that they have attended to patients who came to the consultation with a prior diagnostic hypothesis developed through Artificial Intelligence, and 14.7 percent claim to have treated people whose clinical picture worsened after following the indications of a chatbot.
Coinciding with the celebration of World Mental Health Day, this October 10, Doctoralia has conducted a study in Spain to evaluate how generative Artificial Intelligence is influencing mental health. Nearly 3,000 users and almost 1,000 psychologists and psychiatrists from the country participated in the research.
"Doctors see how patients arrive with more and more information, but being more informed does not always mean being better informed. Our role is evolving: in addition to diagnosing and treating, we have to help contextualize that information, distinguish symptoms from diagnoses, and provide an individualized clinical perspective that an algorithm cannot replace," explains psychiatrist Dr. Alejandro Martínez Rico.
Experts emphasize that presenting oneself in the consultation with conclusions obtained from a chatbot can complicate professional assessment. In fact, 41.3 percent of specialists state that they have received direct requests to initiate or adjust medication following recommendations provided by an algorithm.
According to Martínez Rico, "these data reflect our tendency to seek quick answers to complex problems. Prescribing is not simply about associating a symptom with a medication: it requires assessing diagnosis, history, other treatments, risks, evolution, and patient preferences. AI can be a supportive tool, but therapeutic decisions need clinical judgment and professional responsibility."
Almost 80 percent of the professionals consulted consider it essential to establish a specific legal regulation on the use of generative AI in the field of mental health. At the same time, they differentiate between the autonomous use that the patient makes outside the consultation and the applications that serve as support for clinical work. More than 75 percent of psychiatrists and 42 percent of psychologists in Spain already use AI tools to streamline administrative tasks and reduce bureaucratic burden, with the aim of being able to dedicate more time to direct and personalized care.