Presentation (CTI)

OBJECTIVES: Stakeholder-based health need elicitation is central to health needs assessment (HNA), yet commonly used methods (interviews, focus groups, workshops, and surveys) often fail to produce comparable and decision-relevant data. This paper reviews the limitations of current elicitation approaches and proposes a vignette-based methodology as a theoretically grounded and adaptable alternative.
METHODS: A review of the literature on stakeholder engagement, health need elicitation, and vignette methodology identified key limitations of conventional approaches, including availability bias, interpretative variability, and the lack of a shared elicitation context. Building on this analysis, we developed a vignette-based framework comprising stakeholder-specific vignette designs (descriptive open-ended, organizational choice, and critical-moment) and propose voice-based response collection to capture paralinguistic cues.
RESULTS: Current elicitation methods generate heterogeneous, recall-driven data, with few studies formally evaluating their effectiveness. The proposed vignette-based approach standardizes the elicitation context, shifts participants from recall to deliberation, and anchors responses to a common reference point. This improves comparability while preserving stakeholder perspectives and facilitating the identification of implicit needs. The three vignette types demonstrate flexibility across stakeholder groups, while voice-based responses may enrich interpretation through tone, pauses, hesitations, and vocal intensity.
CONCLUSIONS: Vignette-based elicitation, particularly when combined with voice-based data collection, offers a promising methodological advance for stakeholder-informed HNA. Future research should validate the approach, explore factorial vignette designs, and develop standardized reporting guidelines.