AI-mediated healthcare and trust. A trust-construct and trust-factor framework for empirical research

Abstract Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare is growing exponentially, and its use is expected to continue expanding in the coming years. However, lack of trust in AI systems remains a significant barrier to their widespread adoption. This article analyzes the problem of trust, its various features and its application in AI-mediated healthcare. We first review the literature on trust and trust in technology to detect which theoretical constructs are essential to trust. We then identify the factors that we consider fundamental for a rich and complex comprehension of trust in AI-mediated healthcare. We finally propose a trust-factor framework that could be used for empirical research on AI-mediated healthcare and its practical implementation.