2026-10-06T10:37:42Z https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai

oai:figshare.com:article/34052991 2026-10-02T04:17:03Z category_27115 category_27082 item_type_3 month_year_10_2026

Design and Requirements Analysis of a Conversational Agent for Mental Health: A Qualitative Study Based on Interviews with Patients and Therapists David Villarreal-Zegarra (5041979) Mental health services Digital health Conversational agents Mental health Requirements engineering User-centered design Qualitative research <p dir="ltr"><b>Introduction:</b> The prevalence of common mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety, represents one of the leading causes of years lived with disability. However, a substantial gap remains in access to traditional treatment. Artificial intelligence–based conversational systems represent an alternative to provide emotional support and psychoeducation. Nevertheless, their design raises relevant ethical, clinical, and technological challenges, which require rigorous user-centered software engineering approaches.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Objective:</b> To design and specify the functional and non-functional requirements for the development of a conversational agent focused on improving mental health.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Method:</b> Our design is qualitative. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured interviews with patients and therapists, aimed at exploring perceptions regarding the potential use of a conversational agent in mental health. The collected information was analyzed and systematized from a requirements engineering perspective, enabling the definition of roles, functional and non-functional requirements, use cases, and Unified Modeling Language (UML) models. In addition, ethical considerations and clinical safety aspects were incorporated as cross-cutting design constraints.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Results:</b> The analysis enabled the identification of a structured set of functional requirements differentiated by role (Patient and Therapist), oriented toward basic emotional support, psychoeducation, monitoring, and the activation of crisis workflows, as well as non-functional requirements related to usability, privacy, informed consent, safety, reliability, and prevention of dependency. These elements were integrated into a preliminary modular architecture and UML models describing the expected system behavior, establishing a traceable technical specification aligned with good software engineering practices.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Conclusion:</b> The findings allow the identification of the basic functionalities and requirements that future users need to interact with a conversational agent for mental health. This work provides a framework applicable to the development of conversational solutions in sensitive domains, integrating principles from software engineering, mental health, and ethics in artificial intelligence.</p> 2026-10-02T04:17:03Z Dataset Dataset 10.6084/m9.figshare.34052991.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Design_and_Requirements_Analysis_of_a_Conversational_Agent_for_Mental_Health_A_Qualitative_Study_Based_on_Interviews_with_Patients_and_Therapists/34052991 CC BY 4.0