Digital storytelling to facilitate consumer engagement in healthcare research
Dr Debbie Pu
Research Fellow, Monash University
Website: research.monash.edu/en/persons/debbie-pu
It's important to involve everyone in research and try to give people a say, even if not everyone has the types of background and initial knowledge that makes it easy for them to understand the research.
The easiest and direct ways to convey research background information to lay people are words on a piece of paper or from a researcher’s explanations. But these efforts could be improved by making the message more attention grabbing and multimedia.
This study provided the same information about a complex health care problem to 20 older adults, half read a written document, half watched an animated video with voice over. People who watched the video requested clarifications less than people who read the same information in a written document.
This finding suggests that researchers can consider using multimedia methods to engage people in research to convey information more efficiently and interestingly.