Patients’ preferences for family medicine physicians’ video biographies

ABSTRACT

No studies have assessed prospective patients’ opinions regarding physician introductory videos despite their increasing prevalence. Therefore, a within-subjects experiment randomly exposed participants to five physician video biographies featuring primarily either personal or professional information. Participants’ attitudes were measured. They also selected the physician they would want to visit. Participants chose physicians with whom they perceived the greatest similarity, and indicated greater ease choosing physicians when exposed to biographies containing personal information. Future videos should be between 60 and 90 seconds. Participants appreciated videos’ abilities to show physicians’ personalities. Participants also stated what else they would like to see included in future videos.

KEYWORDS:

• Biographies
• health care systems
• physician seeking
• videos