Examining the Antecedent and Outcomes of Self-Disclosing to AI Chatbots in Healthcare: The Moderating Role of Health Anxiety

The rapid integration of AI into healthcare has generated growing interest in the engagement of AI chatbots for medical consultation. However, it remains unclear what motivates people to engage with AI chatbots in healthcare and the subsequent outcomes. Drawing upon and extending the logic of the cognitive mediation model, a survey (N = 779) was conducted in China. The results revealed that individuals’ positive attitudes toward human doctors were positively linked to their self-disclosure to AI chatbots in healthcare, which in turn was positively associated with their elaboration of AI-generated health information. Ultimately, elaboration was positively linked to individuals’ subjective health knowledge, while there was no significant association between elaboration and objective health knowledge. In addition, latent moderated structural equation models further revealed that health anxiety significantly moderated the pathway from self-disclosure to AI chatbots to elaboration, the pathway from elaboration to subjective health knowledge, and the pathway from elaboration to objective health knowledge. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.