iCare: Harnessing AI and Emotional Intelligence to Revolutionize Accessible Mental Health Support

The increasing demand for readily accessible mental health services underpins the need for technological adaptations of therapy. Mental health therapies aside from self-helping groups face limitations such as expensive treatment options, inadequate resources in society, and public perception barriers inhibiting treatment. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) have also made it possible to use mental health assistive longing chat-based personality interfaces. iCare is a DialoGPT chat bot that tailor replies based on the emotional state of the user. This study focuses on the design, implementation, and initial evaluation of iCare with the aim of addressing the mental health treatment challenges by providing timely emotional support to users. The preliminary evaluation demonstrates that iCare detects emotional cues and responds appropriately in an empathetic manner, thus branding it as an assistive device for mental health with potentially remarkable influence. iCare aspires to play a more instrumental role in the management of patients suffering from mental illnesses by integrating Emotional AI into Mental health resources, where direct presentation of care and access to treatment sources is provided as required.