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Digital Health Reviews (3867) Natural Language Processing (1343) Depression and Mood Disorders; Suicide Prevention (2527) Anxiety and Stress Disorders (1660) Machine Learning (3353) Mental Health Issues in Adolescence (799) Conversational Agent Reviews (16)

Published on in Vol 27 (2025)

Preprints (earlier versions) of this paper are available at https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/78186, first published .
Man overwhelmed by digital information, with a glowing AI brain above.

The Efficacy of Rule-Based Versus Large Language Model-Based Chatbots in Alleviating Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The Efficacy of Rule-Based Versus Large Language Model-Based Chatbots in Alleviating Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Authors of this article:

Qiuxue Du1 Author Orcid Image ;   Yongliang Ren1 Author Orcid Image ;   Ze-long Meng2 Author Orcid Image ;   Han He1 Author Orcid Image ;   Shasha Meng1 Author Orcid Image
Article Authors Cited by (20) Tweetations (1) Metrics

Journals

  1. Uzoma C, Chukwuedo G, Isaac E, Uzoma V, Eneh S, Chinyere F, Precious O, Onukansi F. Chatbots as frontline educators in sexual reproductive health rights: evidence, limitations, and ethical considerations. Frontiers in Digital Health 2026;8 View
  2. Khosravi M, Yousefi-Roobiyat M, Asghari Z, Nakhaei M, Khosravi F. Comparison of the performance of ChatGPT-5, Gemini 3, Copilot, Perplexity, and medical students in answering neurology questions: a cross-sectional study. Scientific Reports 2026;16(1) View
  3. Gautam C, Kumar P. Are AI Companions Real Companions? A BERT‐Based Study of Replika Reviews. Journal of Consumer Behaviour 2026;25(4):2106 View
  4. Chung K. Continuance usage intention toward GenAI-enabled airline websites: A PLS-SEM and fsQCA approach. Research in Transportation Business & Management 2026;67:101686 View
  5. Yang M, Oka M, Mori H. Development and Evaluation of a Chatbot-Based System for Early Detection of Depression Indicators. Computers 2026;15(5):269 View
  6. Chen H, Chen L, Yang J, Tang A, Yang Y. Generative artificial intelligence in depression research: A bibliometric analysis of WoSCC-Indexed literature. DIGITAL HEALTH 2026;12 View
  7. Khosravi M, Izadi R. Mental health chatbots and their technical features: A systematic review of reviews and a thematic analysis. Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health 2026;13 View
  8. Mokhtari Masoumi Alamdarloo S, Mirzakhani A, Azhdarloo M, Haghani-Samani E, Nazari A. Effectiveness of AI and rule-based conversational agents for depression, anxiety and stress: A meta-analysis. npj Digital Medicine 2026;9(1) View
  9. Троя Д, Ершова Р. Чат-боты как инструменты цифровой психологии и самопомощи. International Journal of Medicine and Psychology 2026;9(5):104 View
  10. Tieu K, Agyapong-Opoku F, Agyapong B. The use of chatbots as interventions for mental health conditions: scoping review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Frontiers in Digital Health 2026;8 View
  11. Ren X, Li X, Gao L, Wei Q, Liu H, Yu X. Effects of AI Interventions Across Cognitive, Social-emotional, and Academic Outcomes: a Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials with Nonlinear Dose–response Evidence. Educational Psychology Review 2026;38(1) View
  12. Li Z, Zheng Z, Zhang S, Yue X, Zhang Z, Zhu J, Hu B. CCD-MAF: A Cognitive Conceptualization Diagram-driven Multi-Agent Framework for structured CBT dialogue generation. Information Processing & Management 2027;64(2):105230 View

Books/Policy Documents

  1. Sanna L, Franzin M, De Carli S, Bolpagni M, Casazza S, Rizzi S, Eccher C, Dragoni M. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. View
  2. Gosar D, Leader J. The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cyberpsychology. View

Conference Proceedings

  1. Pandgale P, Chavan N, Bharti M, Kumar A. 2026 International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Future Innovations (ETFI). NeuroBloom: Where AI Meets Inner Peace View
  2. Moser F, Vinay R, Kowatsch T. Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces. STELLA: An Open-Source Platform for Auditable Voice-First Conversational Health Coaching Agents View
  3. Widagdo H, Marbun D, Aini N, Putri G, Tirana Y, Chotimah S. 2026 International Conference on Information Management and Technology (ICIMTech). Comparative Analysis of N8N Chatbot and AI Agent: Performance Evaluation LLM Backends Models View
  4. Wijaya A, Harefa J. 2026 IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Mechatronics Systems (AIMS). Early Mental Health Assistance Through Audio Emotion Detection and Conversational Agent View
  5. Kadian I, Shally , Bajaj A, Sehgal M, Garg P, Makkar R, Gupta S. 2026 1st International Conference on Computational Intelligence: Methods, Models, and Real-World Applications (ICCIMMR). A Survey on the Role of Artificial Intelligence in Managing Anxiety and Depression View
  6. Agarwal S. 2026 IEEE 13th International Conference on Intelligent Systems (IS). Large Language Models in Mental Health Support and Psychotherapy Chatbots: Clinical Applications, Evidence Base, Ethical Risks, and Governance Priorities View