Exploring the added value of video-stimulated recall in researching the primary care doctor-patient consultation: a process evaluation

Background: Video-stimulated recall (VSR) is a method whereby researchers show research participants a video of their own behaviour to prompt and enhance their recall and interpretation after the event, e.g. in a post-consultation interview. This paper describes a process evaluation with the aim of understanding what video stimulated recall (VSR) may have added to findings, to describe participants’ responses to, and the acceptability of,VSR and to explore participants’ perceptions of behaviour change in response to being video-recorded.

Methods: This evaluation took place in the context of a UK study concerning the discussion of osteoarthritis in primary care consultations. Post consultation VSR interviews were conducted with 13 family physicians (general practitioners, GPs) and 17 patients. Thematic analysis of these interviews and the matched 17 consultations was undertaken, and was both inductive and deductive in approach.

Results: The findings demonstrate VSR appeared to add value by enabling a deeper understanding of participants’ thoughts and reactions to specific parts of consultation dialogue, by facilitating participants to express concerns and possibly speak more candidly and by eliciting a more multi-layered narrative from participants. The method was broadly acceptable to participants; however, levels of mild anxiety and/or distress were reported or observed by both doctor and patient participants and this may explain in part why some participants reported behaviour change as a result of the video. Any reported behaviour change was used to inform analysis.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates how VSR may enable a more critical, more specific and more in-depth response from participants to events of interest, and in doing so, generates multiple layers of narrative. This results in a method that goes beyond fact finding and description and generates more meaningful explanations of consultation events, getting straight to the core of what is salient to participants.