Prompt engineering with ChatGPT3.5 and GPT4 to improve patient education on retinal diseases
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect of prompt engineering on the accuracy, comprehensiveness, readability, and empathy of large language model (LLM)-generated responses to patient questions regarding retinal disease. DESIGN: Prospective qualitative study. PARTICIPANTS: Retina specialists, ChatGPT3.5, and GPT4. METHODS: Twenty common patient questions regarding 5 retinal conditions were inputted to ChatGPT3.5 and GPT4 as a stand-alone question or preceded by an optimized prompt (prompt A) or preceded by prompt A with specified limits to length and grade reading level (prompt B). Accuracy and comprehensiveness were graded by 3 retina specialists on a Likert scale from 1 to 5 (1: very poor to 5: very good). Readability of responses was assessed using Readable.com, an online readability tool. RESULTS: There were no significant differences between ChatGPT3.5 and GPT4 across any of the metrics tested. Median accuracy of responses to a stand-alone question, prompt A, and prompt B questions were 5.0, 5.0, and 4.0, respectively. Median comprehensiveness of responses to a stand-alone question, prompt A, and prompt B questions were 5.0, 5.0, and 4.0, respectively. The use of prompt B was associated with a lower accuracy and comprehensiveness than responses to stand-alone question or prompt A questions (p < 0.001). Average-grade reading level of responses across both LLMs were 13.45, 11.5, and 10.3 for a stand-alone question, prompt A, and prompt B questions, respectively (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Prompt engineering can significantly improve readability of LLM-generated responses, although at the cost of reducing accuracy and comprehensiveness. Further study is needed to understand the utility and bioethical implications of LLMs as a patient educational resource.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.016 | 0.096 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.012 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".