Understanding Health Care Students' Perceptions, Beliefs, and Attitudes Toward AI-Powered Language Models:...

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
• Digital Health Literacy

Background:

• ChatGPT, an AI chatbot, was not designed for healthcare but presents potential benefits contingent on user understanding.
• Limited research exists on health care students' awareness, perception, and attitudes toward ChatGPT.
• Health care students' acceptance and understanding are crucial for the responsible adoption of AI tools in the medical field.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess ChatGPT usage frequency, perceived knowledge, risks, and ethical considerations among health care students.
• To evaluate student attitudes towards ChatGPT in health education.
• To examine demographic differences and the predictive role of knowledge, risk, and ethics perception on attitudes toward ChatGPT.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional survey was administered to 2661 health care students across the Americas (May-June 2023).
• Data analysis included descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, ANOVA, and ordinal logistic regression models.
• Models were adjusted for gender, institution type, major, and country to analyze predictive factors of attitude.

Main Results:

• 42.99% of students were unaware of ChatGPT; perceived knowledge was minimal (median 2.00).
• Most students perceived ChatGPT as neither ethical nor unethical but somewhat agreed on its benefits for healthcare settings and information access.
• Increased perceived knowledge and higher ethical perception ratings were associated with more favorable attitudes towards ChatGPT.

Conclusions:

• A significant portion of health care students lack awareness of ChatGPT, despite its growing relevance.
• Students generally exhibit positive attitudes and a desire to learn more about ChatGPT.
• Medical educators should investigate integrating chatbots like ChatGPT into undergraduate health care curricula.