Exploring the Added Value of Video-Stimulated Recall in Researching the Primary Care Doctor–Patient Consultation

Abstract

Background: Video-stimulated recall (VSR) is a method whereby researchers show research participants a video of their own behavior to prompt and enhance their recall and interpretation after the event, for example, in a postconsultation interview. This article describes a process evaluation with the aim of understanding what VSR may have added to findings, to describe participants’ responses to, and the acceptability of, VSR. Method: This evaluation took place in the context of a United Kingdom study concerning the discussion of osteoarthritis in primary care consultations. Postconsultation VSR interviews were conducted with 13 family physicians and 17 patients. Thematic analysis of these interviews and the matched 17 consultations was undertaken. Results: VSR appeared to add value by enabling a deeper understanding of participants’ reactions to specific parts of consultation dialogue, by facilitating participants to express concerns and speak more candidly, and by eliciting a more multilayered 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 why some participants reported behavior change as a result of the video. Any reported behavior 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.