Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Feb 27, 2020
Date Accepted: Nov 23, 2020
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Innovation in pain management: A case study of using co-design methods during the development of a relapse prevention intervention
ABSTRACT
Background:
Many intervention development projects fail to bridge the gap from basic research to clinical practice. Instead of theory-based approaches to intervention development, co-design prioritizes the end-users perspective as well as continuous collaboration between stakeholders, designers and researchers throughout the project. This alternative approach to the development of interventions is expected to promote the adaptation to existing treatment activities and to be responsive to the requirements of end-users.
Objective:
The first objective is to provide an overview of all activities that were employed during the course of a research project to develop a relapse prevention intervention for interdisciplinary pain treatment programs. The second objective is to examine how co-design may contribute to stakeholder involvement, generation of relevant insights and ideas, and incorporation of stakeholder input into the intervention design.
Methods:
We performed an embedded single case study and used the double diamond model to describe the process of intervention development. Using all available data sources, we also performed a deductive content analysis to reflect on this process.
Results:
By critically reviewing the value and function of a co-design project with respect to idea generation, stakeholder involvement and incorporation of stakeholder input into the intervention design, we demonstrated how co-design shaped the transition from ideas, via concepts to a prototype for a relapse prevention intervention.
Conclusions:
Structural use of co-design throughout the project resulted in many different participating stakeholders and stimulating design activities. As a consequence, the majority of the components of the final prototype can be traced back to the information that stakeholders provided during the project. Although this illustrates how co-design facilitates the integration of contextual information into the intervention design, further experimental testing is required to evaluate to what extent this approach ultimately leads to improved usability as well as patient outcomes in the context of clinical practice.
Citation
