Managing the digital healthcare services design: A preliminarily study on the role of human-like interaction, anthropomorphism and emotional receptivity on patients’ intention to use medical intelligent agents

In this study we hypothesized that the human-like interaction level (low vs high) may positively influence individuals’ intentions to use trough the effect of their perceived anthropomorphism. Moreover, by considering the peculiarities of the doctor-patient relationship resulting not only from professionalism, but also from emotionality, empathy, and non-verbal communication, we postulate that such an effect may be moderate by patients’ emotional receptivity. To test the hypothesis, an experimental design based on a two-cell experiment has been conducted by manipulating the level of human-like interactions in a digital-based healthcare service delivery. Building on previous literature explaining the different level of perceived human-like interaction levels, we manipulate human-like interaction level by exposing half sample to a scenario describing the use of chatbot for healthcare service delivery (low condition). The other half of the sample has been exposed to a scenario describing a Metaverse-based healthcare service delivery in where users are able to interact via their avatars (high condition).