ChatGPT in pharmacy practice: a cross-sectional exploration of Jordanian pharmacists' perception, practice, and concerns

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study is to find out how much pharmacists know and have used ChatGPT in their practice. We investigated the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing ChatGPT in a pharmacy context, the amount of training necessary to use it proficiently, and the influence on patient care using a survey. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was carried out between May and June 2023 to assess the potential and problems that pharmacists observed while integrating chatbots powered by AI (ChatGPT) in pharmacy practice. The correlation between perceived benefits and concerns was evaluated using Spearman's rho correlation due to the data's non-normal distribution.Any pharmacists licensed by the Jordanian Pharmacists Association were included in the study. A convenient sampling technique was used to choose the participants, and the study questionnaire was distributed utilizing an online medium (Facebook and WhatsApp). Anyone who expressed interest in taking part was given a link to the study's instructions so they may read them before giving their electronic consent and accessing the survey. RESULTS: The potential advantages of ChatGPT in the pharmacy practice were widely acknowledged by the participants. The majority of participants (69.9%) concurred that educational material about pharmacy items or therapeutic areas can be provided using ChatGPT, with 66.9% of respondents believing that ChatGPT is a machine learning algorithm. Concerns about the accuracy of AI-generated responses were also prevalent. More than half of the participants (55.7%) raised the possibility that AI systems such as ChatGPT could pick up on and replicate prejudices and discriminatory patterns from the data they were trained on. Analysis shows a statistically significant positive link, albeit a minor one, between the perceived advantages of ChatGPT and its drawbacks (r = 0.255, p < 0.001). However, concerns were strongly correlated with knowledge of ChatGPT. In contrast to those who were either unsure or had not heard of ChatGPT (64.2%), individuals who had heard of it were more likely to have strong concerns (79.8%) (p = 0.002). Finally, the results show a statistically significant association between the frequency of ChatGPT use and positive perceptions of the tool (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Although ChatGPT has shown promise in health and pharmaceutical practice, its application should be rigorously regulated by evidence-based law. According to the study's findings, pharmacists support the use of ChatGPT in pharmacy practice but have concerns about its use due to ethical reasons, legal problems, privacy concerns, worries about the accuracy of the data generated, data learning, and bias risk.