Free-Text Responses in a Nationally Representative Experimental Survey about End-of-Life Care Choices: ChatGPT-4o-Assisted Qualitative Analytical Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Little is known about how surrogates make end-of-life care choices for patients who lack the ability to make decisions for themselves.

Objective

The study aims (1) to identify key themes that emerged from participants' free-text responses to a large nationally representative vignette survey about surrogate decision-making in end-of-life care and (2) to determine if an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot could assist us in accurately and efficiently performing qualitative analyses.

Methods

Our dataset included 3931 free-text responses from a nationally representative survey of 6109 individuals. In this qualitative study, we first familiarized ourselves with the free-text responses and hand-coded the first 200 responses until we reached saturation.

SUBMITTER: Goldberg EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12571202 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature