Attention: Artificial Intelligence is Coming! What Do Healthcare Professionals Say About This in Türkiye?

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has been in growing use in healthcare to promote health via identification, prevention and treatment of diseases. The current study determined the perceptions and opinions of healthcare professionals (HPs) concerning the use and the pros and cons of AI. The study's quantitative arm included 233 HPs who completed the AI Pros and Cons Scale in İstanbul, Türkiye. The qualitative arm of the study included 11 physicians whose opinions were asked with interviews. In the quantitative arm, perception scores of HPs were high about pros and cons of AI, with higher scores favouring pros. In the qualitative arm, the majority of the physicians considered AI an indispensable assistant in their clinical practice, making clinical decisions faster, reducing workload and time consumption, and providing an early and accurate diagnosis. AI was not considered to fully replace the profession of HPs and final decisions would always be in the hands of physicians. There were also considerable concerns about overdiagnosis, insensitivity to emotional factors, and medical errors that might result from an insufficient amount of data. Currently, AI has already taken a long way in undertaking numerous tasks that once were only performed by HPs. This is particularly valuable for HPs to enhance their knowledge and capabilities.