Citation

Shinan-Altman S, Elyoseph Z, Levkovich I. PeerJ 2024; 12: e17468.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, PeerJ)

DOI

10.7717/peerj.17468

PMID

38827287

PMCID

PMC11143969

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4 in incorporating critical risk factors, namely history of depression and access to weapons, into suicide risk assessments. Both models assessed suicide risk using scenarios that featured individuals with and without a history of depression and access to weapons. The models estimated the likelihood of suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, serious suicide attempts, and suicide-related mortality on a Likert scale. A multivariate three-way ANOVA analysis with Bonferroni post hoc tests was conducted to examine the impact of the forementioned independent factors (history of depression and access to weapons) on these outcome variables. Both models identified history of depression as a significant suicide risk factor. ChatGPT-4 demonstrated a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between depression, access to weapons, and suicide risk. In contrast, ChatGPT-3.5 displayed limited insight into this complex relationship. ChatGPT-4 consistently assigned higher severity ratings to suicide-related variables than did ChatGPT-3.5. The study highlights the potential of these two models, particularly ChatGPT-4, to enhance suicide risk assessment by considering complex risk factors.

Language: en

Keywords

Humans; Risk Factors; Adult; Female; Male; Middle Aged; Depression; Risk Assessment; Young Adult; Suicidal Ideation; Mental health; Weapons; Suicide Prevention; *Suicide/psychology; Suicide, Attempted/psychology/statistics & numerical data; Suicide risk assessment; Artificial intelligence; ChatGPT; *Depression/psychology/epidemiology; Access to weapons