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Participatory Co-Design of a Psychoeducational Digital Mental Health Website for Youth, Families, and School Communities in Colombia
ABSTRACT
Background:
Children and adolescents increasingly look for mental health information online, but few digital mental health resources in Spanish have been co-designed with end users in Latin America.
Objective:
To describe the participatory co-design of ENMENTAL, a psychoeducational mental health website for children, adolescents, and young people, and for the adults who support them, in Bogotá, Colombia, and to describe its use during its first two years online.
Methods:
Following World Health Organization guidance for digital health interventions and an established research and development cycle, the platform was developed in four phases: participatory design (PD) workshops on the platform and the psychoeducational content (Phase 1), knowledge translation sessions with a multidisciplinary team (Phase 2), and group testing of the alpha (Phase 3) and beta (Phase 4) prototypes. Sessions continued until no new design requirements emerged, and findings were synthesized iteratively into design decisions. Website use from October 2024 to September 2026 was described with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) standard reports.
Results:
A total of 272 participants took part in 18 PD workshops and 8 group testing sessions, including children, adolescents, young adults, parents and caregivers, teachers, school counselors, school directors, and health professionals (74% female; age range 6–59 years). Participants described the need for a separate profile for each stakeholder group, which led to four user profiles: children; adolescents and young people; educational communities; and parents and caregivers. Essential functionalities included a smart-search bar, an urgent help button, a virtual assistant with links to human support, and moderated peer forums. Participants preferred a clear, friendly, and credible interface, brief and visual content, and the same information in multiple formats. Privacy, anonymity, and safety were central concerns. The process resulted in 199 psychoeducational resources, mainly text-and-image (35%), audio (30%), and video (28%). During its first two years online, ENMENTAL reached 48,918 users from 92 countries, 55.7% of them from Colombia, with an engagement rate of 55.5%. The most viewed pages were resources addressed to parents, caregivers, and teachers. A small proportion of users (0.6%) arrived through AI assistants.
Conclusions:
Participatory design with end users moved ENMENTAL from a traditional informational website to a youth-friendly platform with differentiated profiles and links to support, used across Spanish-speaking countries. However, the most viewed resources were those addressed to adults, which suggests that online availability alone may not be enough to reach children and adolescents. Digital psychoeducational resources should be integrated into structured, multilevel programs in schools, families, and health services. Future studies should evaluate the usability, effectiveness, and implementation of the platform.
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