Young peoples’ reflections about using a chatbot to promote their mental wellbeing in northern periphery areas - a qualitative study

Figures & data

Table 1. Examples of meaning units, condensed meaning units with interpretation of underlying meaning, sub-themes and themes from content analysis.

Meaning unit	Condensed meaning unit with interpretation of the underlying meaning	Sub-theme	Theme
“ChatPal is anonymous and it can feel good to write to a robot being anonymous if you have trust issues as you can know for sure that what you say is not gossiped about later. It is available around the clock”.	Having someone available to talk to around the clock and able to be anonymous	Always available and anonymous	Feeling as if someone is there when needed
“It should have more personality and not feel TOO much like a robot as it becomes one sided and insensitive”.	It feels like a robot without personality, it becomes one sided and insensitive	Conversations are unnatural and impersonal	Human-robot interaction has its limitations
“Difficult to understand what to do, I don’t know where to push and then it becomes easy to just push to carry on”.	Difficult to navigate the app because I don’t understand how it is structured	Sometimes difficult to navigate	Usability can be improved

Figure 1. The overarching theme “a good idea … but”, themes (text in green, pink and orange) and subthemes (white text) describing Swedish young peoples’ experiences of using a chatbot designed to promote their mental well-being.

COREQ (COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research) Checklist

Topic	ItemNo.	Guide Questions/Description	Reported on Page No.
Domain 1: Research team and reflexivity
Personal characteristics
Interviewer/facilitator	1	Which author/s conducted the interview or focus group?	16
Credentials	2	What were the researcher’s credentials? E.g. PhD, MD	1
Occupation	3	What was their occupation at the time of the study?	6
Gender	4	Was the researcher male or female?	6
Experience and training	5	What experience or training did the researcher have?	1, 6
Relationship with participants
Relationship established	6	Was a relationship established prior to study commencement?	5
Participant knowledge of the interviewer	7	What did the participants know about the researcher? e.g. personal goals, reasons for doing the research	5
Interviewer characteristics	8	What characteristics were reported about the inter viewer/facilitator? e.g. Bias, assumptions, reasons and interests in the research topic	N/A
Domain 2: Study design
Theoretical framework
Methodological orientation and Theory	9	What methodological orientation was stated to underpin the study? e.g. grounded theory, discourse analysis, ethnography, phenomenology, content analysis	6
Participant selection
Sampling	10	How were participants selected? e.g. purposive, convenience, consecutive, snowball	5
Method of approach	11	How were participants approached? e.g. face-to-face, telephone, mail, email	5
Sample size	12	How many participants were in the study?	5
Non-participation	13	How many people refused to participate or dropped out? Reasons?	5
Setting
Setting of data collection	14	Where was the data collected? e.g. home, clinic, workplace	5
Presence of non participants	15	Was anyone else present besides the participants and researchers?	5
Description of sample	16	What are the important characteristics of the sample? e.g. demographic data, date	5-6
Data collection
Interview guide	17	Were questions, prompts, guides provided by the authors? Was it pilot tested?	6
Repeat interviews	18	Were repeat inter views carried out? If yes, how many?	N/A
Audio/visual recording	19	Did the research use audio or visual recording to collect the data?	6
Field notes	20	Were field notes made during and/or after the interview or focus group?	6
Duration	21	What was the duration of the inter views or focus group?	N/A
Data saturation	22	Was data saturation discussed?	N/A
Transcripts returned	23	Were transcripts returned to participants for comment and/or
Domain 3: analysis and findings
Data analysis
Number of data coders	24	How many data coders coded the data?	6, 16
Description of the coding tree	25	Did authors provide a description of the coding tree?	6-7
Derivation of themes	26	Were themes identified in advance or derived from the data?	6
Software	27	What software, if applicable, was used to manage the data?	N/A
Participant checking	28	Did participants provide feedback on the findings?	N/A
Reporting
Quotations presented	29	Were participant quotations presented to illustrate the themes/findings? Was each quotation identified? e.g. participant number	9-11
Data and findings consistent	30	Was there consistency between the data presented and the findings?	8-11
Clarity of major themes	31	Were major themes clearly presented in the findings?	8-11
Clarity of minor themes	32	Is there a description of diverse cases or discussion of minor themes?	8-11