"Alexa, Am I pregnant?": A content analysis of a virtual assistant's responses to prenatal health questions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jennifer Schindler-Ruwisch, Christa Palancia Esposito
PMID 33422368WHAT IT FOUND
Alexa answered only four of 40 common prenatal questions accurately (10%), and could not answer 14 (35%).
It gave inaccurate or irrelevant answers on labor, vaccines, smoking, alcohol, and COVID-19; providers should point patients to reliable sources.
Key findings
01Alexa gave accurate answers to four questions (10%).
02Alexa could not answer 14 questions (35%), including how to know if labor has started and whether smoking is safe.
03A total of 21 out of 40 responses (52%) were not accurate based on current evidence.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only 40 questions were tested, so the result does not cover all prenatal questions. The queries were made over one week in May 2020, so Alexa may have changed since then. The study assessed Alexa's answers, not how patients used them or what happened to their pregnancies. Accuracy was judged against ACOG guidelines, not against every possible evidence source.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that Alexa is a reliable source of prenatal advice because it answered four questions correctly. It also gave inaccurate or irrelevant answers.