Formalization of an Evaluation Grid for Assessing the Quality of Visual Aids to Enhance Individual Health Education in General Medical Consultations (VISUMEG)

March 12, 2026 updated by: CNGE Conseil

Formalization of an Assessment Grid Evaluating the Quality of Visual Aids to Reinforce Individual Health Education in General Medical Consultations

The VISUMEG project aims to formalize an assessment framework for evaluating digital visual aids that are useful for effective communication in health education. It became necessary to gather the quality criteria for visual aids mentioned in the broader literature and then discuss with direct stakeholders (general practitioners and general medicine patients) the criteria relevant to general medicine.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

According to the World Health Organization, health is defined as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." Health is determined by biological, psychological, social, and cultural factors and must therefore be considered holistically. It is influenced by the various events that individuals encounter throughout their lives. They are given the means to take charge of their own health with the aim of improving it.

At the individual and collective levels, patients are supported through preventive measures and health promotion initiatives. Educational tools are developed to facilitate the transmission of useful information to patients, develop their health knowledge and skills, and increase their autonomy so that they can make their own decisions. This is the definition of health education.

In their practice, general practitioners play a key role in patient health education. They support patients in a variety of areas: providing information, prevention, screening, therapeutic education, primary care, follow-up, coordination of care, etc. The common thread linking all these areas is the use of communication tools to foster the doctor-patient relationship and thus enable optimal care.

These communication tools include visual aids (sketches, diagrams, posters, leaflets, animations and videos, anatomical charts and even 3D models, etc.). These aids, which are widely used in medicine, primarily engage the sense of sight.

Several studies and literature reviews have shown the usefulness of visual aids in improving healthcare communication, with a positive impact on patient attention, memory, understanding, compliance, and satisfaction. However, studies on the value of visual aids in general practice consultations are rarer.

An initial self-administered questionnaire survey of 376 French general practitioners was conducted by Dr. Jean-Denis Hoonakker in 2019 on the use of visual aids by French general practitioners. Thirty-four percent of them reported using visual aids on a daily basis, 71% at least once a week, and 94% found them useful or very useful. However, 77% felt that they did not use them enough during consultations. The main obstacles to their use were the time spent searching for suitable visual aids, the lack of high-quality visual aids, and a lack of familiarity with their use. A common request made by doctors was for a single database of high-quality digital visual aids to be created to facilitate their use during consultations.

The quality of visual aids therefore seems to be one of the main limitations to their use in general practice. The fact that the quality of a visual aid can directly impact its usefulness in consultations was already highlighted by Dr. Hoonakker. His work suggested that higher-quality visual aids would encourage their use in general practice consultations. However, no grid has been validated in the literature for assessing the quality of visual aids in general practice consultations.

This initial thesis gave rise to a research project at the Department of General Medicine Teaching and Research at the Créteil Faculty of Health: the VISUMEG project. Its objective is to formalize an assessment framework for evaluating digital visual aids that are useful for effective communication in health education. It became necessary to gather the quality criteria for visual media mentioned in the broader literature and then to discuss with the direct stakeholders (general practitioners and general medicine patients) the criteria relevant to general medicine.

Two literature reviews were conducted in parallel by Dr. Marie-Louise Grudzinski and Dr. Charlotte Moinard in the fields of health on the one hand and education and marketing sciences on the other. The 94 studies included compared the impact of a quality criterion between two visual aids on the participant's attention, comprehension, memorization, adherence, or satisfaction. Numerous quality criteria, specific to each visual aid, were identified.

Common characteristics were highlighted in both fields. They concerned the format of the visual aid (simple, uncluttered, realistic, colorful, animated, well-organized, with key information highlighted using visual cues), its content (tailored to the patient's literacy level, culture, and educational objective, with a limited amount of information, created with the patient's participation, balancing emotional and cognitive value), and the representation of risk (pictograms, bar charts).

Based on these two theses, certain elements also need to be clarified. The quality criteria identified differ depending on the type of visual aid and the educational objective sought. Furthermore, the studies included did not always allow for a conclusion to be drawn regarding the impact (positive or negative) of the quality criterion evaluated on the patient. Finally, it is not certain that all the criteria found are applicable to general medicine, as the studies rarely concerned this specialty.

These two studies provide an immediate outlook for the next stage of the VISUMEG project. Using the data obtained from the literature reviews, we wish to determine the quality criteria that seem most relevant to general practice consultations and to verify their applicability in this discipline using a consensus method. The objective of this work will be to evaluate the relevance of these criteria according to the type of visual aid and the desired impact on patients in general practice consultations. The list of criteria relevant for use in general practice will then enable the formalization of an assessment grid based on the selected quality criteria, with the aim of evaluating the usefulness of the various visual aids.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Actual)

20

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • France
      • Paris, France, 75011
        • CNGE Conseil

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

N/A

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

The experts consulted during this Delphi round must have a certain level of expertise in general practice consultation and an interest in the issue of visual aids in healthcare. They must not be involved in the research project. The experts contacted will be French general practitioners (including around ten university internship supervisors or general practitioners trained in communication, and at least five general practitioners who have demonstrated an interest in the subject) and patient partners from health faculties who have a strong relationship with their primary care physician (at least five patient partners).

The experts will mainly be recruited through the principal investigator of each general medicine department with which we are in contact for this project (faculties of Créteil, Sorbonne, and Rennes). Some external experts will be contacted by the VISUMEG steering committee.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • The experts consulted during this Delphi round must have a certain level of expertise in general practice consultation and an interest in the issue of visual aids in healthcare.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Not Expert

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Reach a consensus among experts
Time Frame: 4 month
Reach a consensus among experts on effective quality criteria for patient health education in general practice consultations, based on the type of visual aid and the desired educational objective.
4 month

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Obtain information for creating a grid
Time Frame: 4 month
Obtain information for creating a grid for analyzing visual media (number of grids required, scope of application, etc.).
4 month

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

CNGE Conseil

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

February 8, 2024

Primary Completion (Actual)

May 30, 2024

Study Completion (Actual)

June 6, 2024

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 12, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 12, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

March 17, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

March 17, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 12, 2026

Last Verified

March 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • CNGE-2022-06

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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