Carer involvement in GP-patient consultations and translatability to virtual care: multi-methods study

Background Carers are important facilitators to patients accessing care and having positive experiences. Carers often accompany patients to their consultations, providing emotional and physical support. To our knowledge, there is limited research identifying and describing the specific activities carers are involved in or the translatability of these activities to virtual care.

Aims To 1/ identify and describe the activities carers are involved in during consultations with their general practitioner and 2/ to assess how these activities could translate to virtual care consultations.

Design & setting This study screened 281 videos of in-person GP consultations set within 10 UK general practices, and 39 were eligible for analysis.

Method Secondary analysis of in-person GP consultations to extract activities involving the carer. A novel evidence-based scoring system was used on each activity, determining the likelihood of whether each carer-related activity could be supported in virtual care.

Results A total of 39 activities (7 categories) where carers were involved were identified. Out of these 39 activities, 25.6% (10/39) were categorised ‘health information sharing’, 23% (9/39) were categorised ‘emotional or physical support’, 20.5% (8/39) were categorised ‘history taking’, 12.8% (5/39) were categorised ‘health-related at-home activities’, 7.7% (3/39) were categorised ‘logistics’, 7.7% (3/39) were categorised ‘building a relationship’, and 2.6% (1/39) were categorised as ‘other’. The average score of an activity being translatable to virtual care is 13/15.

Conclusion All activities involving carers were deemed translatable/potentially translatable to virtual care. Future research should examine ways to support carers and their roles during virtual care.