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Abstract
Objectives Medical artificial intelligence (AI) has been used widely applied in clinical field due to its convenience and innovation. However, several policy and regulatory issues such as credibility, sharing of responsibility and ethics have raised concerns in the use of AI. It is therefore necessary to understand the general public’s views on medical AI. Here, a meta-synthesis was conducted to analyse and summarise the public’s understanding of the application of AI in the healthcare field, to provide recommendations for future use and management of AI in medical practice.
Design This was a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies.
Method A search was performed on the following databases to identify studies published in English and Chinese: MEDLINE, CINAHL, Web of science, Cochrane library, Embase, PsycINFO, CNKI, Wanfang and VIP. The search was conducted from database inception to 25 December 2021. The meta-aggregation approach of JBI was used to summarise findings from qualitative studies, focusing on the public’s perception of the application of AI in healthcare.
Results Of the 5128 studies screened, 12 met the inclusion criteria, hence were incorporated into analysis. Three synthesised findings were used as the basis of our conclusions, including advantages of medical AI from the public’s perspective, ethical and legal concerns about medical AI from the public’s perspective, and public suggestions on the application of AI in medical field.
Conclusion Results showed that the public acknowledges the unique advantages and convenience of medical AI. Meanwhile, several concerns about the application of medical AI were observed, most of which involve ethical and legal issues. The standard application and reasonable supervision of medical AI is key to ensuring its effective utilisation. Based on the public’s perspective, this analysis provides insights and suggestions for health managers on how to implement and apply medical AI smoothly, while ensuring safety in healthcare practice.
PROSPERO registration number CRD42022315033.
- medical ethics
- information technology
- health policy
Data availability statement
All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.
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Data availability statement
All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.
Supplementary materials
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Footnotes
CW, HX and DB contributed equally.
Contributors CW conceived the study idea, participated in study design and method development, screened titles, abstracts and full-text articles, carried out the data extraction and quality appraisal of included articles, coded the extracted findings and performed the data synthesis. CW wrote the manuscript. DB independently screened the titles, abstracts and full texts of the retrieved articles to ensure that they met the inclusion criteria, and contributed to the writing of the manuscript. XC applied for regulatory approval, independently extracted data from the included articles, evaluated their qualities and coded the extracted results, contributed to the final synthesis of the data. JG was involved in designing the study, developing the methods, contributing to the synthesis of the extracted findings and monitoring article quality. XJ was involved in study design, research method development and monitoring article quality. XJ was responsible for the overall content as the guarantor.HX contributed to the writing of the subsequent revision of the manuscript and enhanced the English quality of this article. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding This work was supported by Medical Technology Project of Health Commission of Sichuan Province (21PJ109).
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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