Previously submitted to: Journal of Participatory Medicine (no longer under consideration since Dec 27, 2022)
Date Submitted: Dec 6, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
The measurement and outcomes of co-production in health and social care - a systematic review of empirical studies
ABSTRACT
Background:
Co-production is increasingly promoted as an effective way of improving the quality of health and social care services as well as a means of recognizing and promoting the equal value of the contributions of both users and service providers. Given the diversity of measurements used to assess the impact of co-production, potential outcomes of new initiatives can be difficult to interpret and compare. An exploration of previously reported measures and outcomes could help to improve the scientific maturity of this field and enable better understanding of the impacts of co-production. In this systematic review we include co-design as a specific form of co-production.
Objective:
The objective is to explore how empirical studies in the health and social care context have described the outcomes of co-production projects and how those outcomes have been measured. used. The maturity of this research field would benefit from the development and use of scientific reporting guidelines.
Methods:
A wider scoping review was performed which forms the basis for this systematic review. Search terms for the concepts (co-produc* OR coproduc* OR co-design* OR codesign*) and contexts (health OR ‘public service* OR “public sector”) were used in the following databases: CINAHL with Full Text (EBSCOHost), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled trials (Wiley), MEDLINE (EBSCOHost), PsycINFO (ProQuest), PubMed (legacy) and Scopus (Elsevier). This systematic review is reported according to the PRISMA guideline. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (Version 2018) was used to appraise the quality of included papers.
Results:
43 empirical studies were included. The studies were conducted in 12 different countries, with the UK representing more than 50 % of all papers. No paper was excluded due to the Mixed Method Quality Appraisal screening and 60 % of included papers were based on mixed method study designs. The extensive use of self-developed study-specific measures hampered comparisons across studies and cumulative knowledge-building. Overall, the studies reported positive outcomes. Co-production was reported to be positively experienced by participants and evaluations provided important learning to support continuous engagement in co-production.
Conclusions:
The lack of common approaches to measuring co-production is more problematic than the plurality of measurements itself. This systematic review suggest that co-production should be measured from three perspectives: outputs of co-production processes, the experiences of participating in co-production processes, and outcomes of co-production. Both self-developed study-specific measures and established measures should be used. The maturity of this research field would benefit from the development and use of scientific reporting guidelines Clinical Trial: No
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