Greetings!
We’re back after the summer break and to kick off this new season of the Research Comms newsletter, we’re taking a look at a recent study we helped design. It asked a simple but important question: can an animation help patients make sense of complex medical issues?
How it came about
Over the years, we’ve produced dozens of animations that make complex ideas easier for patients and the public to understand. Clients often tell us the same thing: they work. People say the films helped them, or they went on to take the action intended.
But anecdotal feedback isn’t the same as peer-reviewed evidence.
So when a team from Great Ormond Street Hospital invited us to help test whether an animation could really improve patient understanding, we jumped at the chance.
The topic
Prenatal sequencing (pS) is a test sometimes offered to parents when a scan shows something that needs further investigation. It’s complex, often explained at stressful moments, and written information isn’t always easy to follow.
The idea was to create an animation to help parents understand what the test involves and what it could mean for them. The animation would be co-designed by several groups: our Orinoco team leading the creative, with input from researchers at Great Ormond Street Hospital, the charity Antenatal Results & Choices, patient representatives, and clinicians.
Once finished, the study team would test the animation with parents to see whether it improved understanding of pS compared with a written leaflet.
The study at a glance
A total of 428 participants who had been pregnant, or whose partner had been pregnant, in the past 24 months, were semi-randomly assigned to receive information via leaflet, animation, or both.
The full study and its findings were published earlier this year in Prenatal Diagnosis (Wiley, 2025).
5 Key Takeaways
1. Animations are effective
Participants’ objective understanding of pS increased significantly after watching the animation. As did self-reported understanding.
136 participants (89%) reported that they liked the way the information was presented, and the same number said they would have found the information helpful if they had been offered prenatal sequencing.
People said it ‘helped’ understanding and that it had ‘a good voice tone, for a subject that could be emotionally challenging’. `
Others said ‘video is much better to get our attention’ and ‘visual displays are easier to digest’.
2. Offer multiple formats
52% of all respondents said they preferred animation. 42% said they preferred written formats. 6% said they preferred an audio option.
This blend supports what we always say to clients - that an animation should only ever be one of a number of ways of giving information to patients. People have different learning styles and needs, so it’s always best to offer a range of formats.
3. Knowing when enough is enough
In the spirit of transparency - not all of the comments about the animation were totally positive. One described it as ‘very long’. And around half of those who were given the animation said they felt overwhelmed by the amount of information.
Conversely, at least one participant said that they wanted more information about how the pS test is carried out.
These responses illustrate the challenge of assessing how much information is enough. Too much and you risk overwhelming viewers. Too little and they don’t get the information they need.
To remedy this, you might consider splitting a single, longer animation into multiple videos - each one addressing a different aspect of the issue in a bit more detail.
That way, each animation remains digestibly short but still includes enough detail for patients to make an informed decision.
4. Animations can increase equitable access
All clinical research studies and trials should be striving to be as inclusive as possible. Visual aids, such as animations, can help here too.
In this case, the study concluded that non-native English speakers and those with lower literacy levels could benefit from the animation.
As the authors said - “This is particularly important, as language barriers are known to create inequity in care during pregnancy. Our work, therefore, addresses important issues around equitable access to health information.”
5. Co-design is key
Drawing on the expertise and insights of people with a range of experiences leads to better results, which is why collaboration is one of our key creative principles at Orinoco.
On this animation we worked closely with the GOSH researchers, with input from a PPIE (patient and public involvement and engagement) advisory group, parents who had been offered testing in pregnancy, and clinicians with expertise in pS.
The collaborative nature of the project was noted as one of its key strengths by the paper’s authors, as it helped to ensure that the animation was clinically accurate whilst meeting the needs of parents who were offered testing.
To sum up
Animations are an effective tool that can help people to better understand and engage with complex health topics.
They should be offered alongside other information formats e.g. written leaflets.
Care needs to be taken to include enough detail to help patients make an informed decision, while not overwhelming them with too much information.
One way to do that is to break up a longer animation into a series of shorter, more digestible chunks.
Animations can help to increase equitable access to health information.
Translations increase that access further.
A co-design approach that includes people with lived experience is key to ensuring that the animation meets the needs of its intended audience.
What next…
The GOSH team acknowledged a couple of limitations with the study that would benefit from further research…
The participants were not in a real clinical scenario, i.e. they were not being offered a prenatal sequencing test. Further research should involve parents who are being offered pS.
Participants’ knowledge was tested immediately after they were given the information. It would be valuable to examine the impact of these interventions on longer-term knowledge.
We learnt a great deal from this study, and it’s encouraging to see many of our long-held beliefs about animation confirmed by the findings.
If you’re considering using animation in your own patient-engagement work, we’d love to chat.
Peter
👉 You can see more of our health-focused animations here: orinococomms.com/animation
How we can help…
Orinoco Communications is a creative agency for research organisations that want to share their stories with the world.
Here are some of the ways we do that…
Content strategy - we will work with you to uncover your organisation’s most powerful stories. The ones that will make your audiences sit up and take notice, while helping them understand what you do and why.
Content creation - once you’ve identified which stories you want to tell and who you want to tell them to, we can create impactful multimedia content - videos, animations, podcasts, infographics - that will capture their attention and keep them coming back for more.
Get in touch for a chat about how we can help you to communicate your research.