The effectiveness of video animations as a tool to improve health infor-mation recall for patients: A systematic review

Abstract

Introduction: Access to clear and comprehensible health information is crucial for patient em-powerment, leading to improved self-care, adherence to treatment plans, and overall health out-comes. Traditional methods of information delivery, such as written documents and oral commu-nication, often result in poor memorization and comprehension. Recent innovations like anima-tion videos have shown promise in enhancing patient understanding, but comprehensive investi-gations into their effectiveness across various healthcare settings are lacking. This systematic re-view aims to investigate the effectiveness of animation videos on health information recall in adult patients across diverse healthcare sectors, comparing their impact to usual information de-livery methods on short-term and long-term recall of health information.

Methods: We conducted systematic searches in PubMed, Cinahl, and Embase databases, sup-plemented by manual searches of reference lists. Included studies were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving adult participants (≥18 years) that focused on the use of animation videos to provide health information measured against usual information delivery practice. There were no language restrictions. Two independent reviewers screened studies, extracted data, and as-sessed risk of bias using the Revised Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials (RoB 2), Covidence was utilized to handle screening and risk of bias process. A narrative synthesis ap-proach was applied to present results.

Results: Fifteen RCTs- 3 in the United States, 2 in France, 2 in Australia, 2 in Canada and 1 in the United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, Austria and Türkiye, respectively met the inclu-sion criteria, encompassing 2,454 patients across various healthcare settings. The majority of stud-ies (11/15, 73%) reported statistically significant improvements in health information recall when animation videos were used, compared to usual care. Animation videos ranged from 1 to 15 minutes in duration with the most common length ranging from 1-8 minutes (10/15) and utilized various styles including 2D cartoon, 3D computer, and whiteboard animations. Most studies (12/15) assessed information recall immediately after intervention, with only three studies includ-ing longer follow-up periods. Most studies exhibited some concerns related to risk of bias, partic-ularly in domains related to deviations from intended interventions and selection of reported re-sults.

Conclusions: Animation videos appear to significantly improve short-term recall of health infor-mation among adult patients across various healthcare settings compared to usual care. This sug-gests that animation videos could be a valuable tool for informing patients in different healthcare settings. However, further research is needed to explore the long-term efficacy of these interven-tions, their impact on diverse populations, and how different animation styles might affect in-formation recall. Future studies should also address methodological limitations identified in cur-rent research, including the use of validated outcome measures and longer follow-up periods.