Effectiveness of a Mobile Application with an AI-Powered Chatbot to Enhance Nursing Students' Awareness of Substance Abuse Prevention: An Interventional Study

<ns5:p>Background Substance abuse among university students has emerged as a significant problem from a public health perspective, with specific patterns observed among the population in Jordan. Chatbots developed using artificial intelligence are effective instruments in health education delivery. This research sought to investigate the efficacy of a mobile app that incorporates AI chatbots in enhancing nursing students’ knowledge about substance abuse prevention. Methods This study employed a quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group pretest–posttest design, involving of an intervention group and a control group. The study was conducted in the largest Faculty of Nursing in Jordan with more than 2500 students’ capacity, from October 2025 to February 2026. A total of 170 nursing students participated in the study; 85 students were allocated to the control group, and 85 students were assigned to the intervention group. The main study variables included Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) domain scores, as well as Substance Use Risk Profile Scale (SURPS) scores. Results The study results revealed that groups did not differ significantly from each other in terms of demographic variables. In the control group, there were no statistically significant changes found on all study variables, before and after the intervention. Conversely, in the experimental group, there were statistically significant changes found on the students’ knowledge, attitude, and practice concerning the prevention of substance abuse (p &lt; .001) and lower scores for all SURPS subscales p &lt; .001. Sub-group analyses also found no statistically significant differences between the sub-groups in their responses to the intervention program (all p &gt; .05). Multiple regression analysis also found that KAP predicted post-test SURP scores (p &lt; .001). Conclusions The AI-based chatbot intervention resulted in significant positive changes in substance abuse knowledge, attitudes, and preventive behaviors, as well as in acceptance of personality risks.</ns5:p>