CARO: An Empathetic Health Conversational Chatbot for People with Major Depression

Nidhin Harilal, Rushil Shah, Saumitra Sharma, Vedanta Bhutani

Abstract: There has been a rise in the number of patients suffering from major depression over the past decade. Most of the patients are reluctant and do not open up for councelling services. Conversational applications such as chatbots have been found efficient in overcoming alcohol addiction. Effective treatments can tackle depression, but only 10% of affected patients are able to avail such treatments mainly due to lack of resources and social stigma associated with mental disorders. We propose CARO, a chatbot app, which is capable of performing empathetic conversations and providing medical advice for people with major depression. CARO will be able to sense the conversational context, its intent and the associated emotions.