Lay summary
Despite considerable improvement in diagnoses and treatment processes of healthcare chatbots, there is a lack of understanding and research on how people, especially ethnic-specific patients with specific cultural needs, react to a healthcare chatbot implementation. The Pacific community (8.1% of the New Zealand population) is grappling with digital exclusion amongst some of its groups and there is a need to promote Pacific health and wellbeing. For a successful implementation of health technologies, it is critical to understand the positive and negative perspectives about these technologies among ethnic-specific communities, which requires a comprehensive understanding of the community’s perceptions about using these technologies. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the perceptions of Pacific people about the use of healthcare chatbots, their benefits, and their challenges. Our findings inform the development of strategies to support Pacific peoples’ needs to facilitate the use of healthcare chatbots in New Zealand.