Exploring Patient Participation in AI-Supported Health Care: Qualitative Study.

Background: The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into health care has sparked discussions about its potential impact. Patients, as key stakeholders, will be at the forefront of interacting with and being impacted by AI. Given the ethical importance of patient-centered health care, patients must navigate how they engage with AI. However, integrating AI into clinical practice brings potential challenges, particularly in shared decision-making and ensuring patients remain active participants in their care. Whether AI-supported interventions empower or undermine patient participation depends largely on how these technologies are envisioned and integrated into practice.

Objective: This study explores how patients and medical AI professionals perceive the patient's role and the factors shaping participation in AI-supported care.

Methods: We conducted qualitative semistructured interviews with 21 patients and 21 medical AI professionals from different disciplinary backgrounds. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. We identified 3 themes to describe how patients and professionals describe factors that shape participation in AI-supported care.

Results: The first theme explored the vision of AI as an unavoidable and potentially harmful force of change in health care. The second theme highlights how patients perceive limitations in their capabilities that may prevent them from meaningfully participating in AI-supported care. The third theme describes patients' adaptive responses, such as relying on experts or making value judgments leading to acceptance or rejection of AI-supported care.

Conclusions: Both external and internal preconceptions influence how patients and medical AI professionals perceive patient participation. Patients often internalize AI's complexity and inevitability as an obstacle to their active participation, leading them to feel they have little influence over its development. While some patients rely on doctors or see AI as something to accept or reject, these strategies risk placing them in a disempowering role as passive recipients of care. Without adequate education on their rights and possibilities, these responses may not be enough to position patients at the center of their care.