Abstract
IntroductionCo‐design involves stakeholders as design partners to ensure a better fit to user needs. Many benefits of involving stakeholders in design processes have been proposed; however, few studies have evaluated participants’ experience of co‐design in the development of educational interventions. As part of a larger study, health‐care professionals, researchers and patients co‐designed a collective leadership intervention for health‐care teams. This study evaluated their experiences of the co‐design process.MethodsSemi‐structured interviews were conducted with individuals (n = 10) who took part in the co‐design workshops. Interviews were audio‐recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically.ResultsFour key themes were identified from the data: (a) Managing expectations in an open‐ended process; (b) Establishing a positive team climate; (c) Focusing on frustrations—challenging but informative; and (d) Achieving a genuine co‐design partnership.ConclusionsThe development of a positive team climate is essential to the co‐design process. Organizers should focus on building strong working relationships from the beginning to enable open discussion. Organizers of co‐design should be conscious of establishing and maintaining a genuine partnership where participants are involved as equal partners and co‐creators. This can be done through the continuous use of feedback to allow participants to influence the workshop directions, and through limiting researcher domination. Lastly, co‐design can be daunting, but organizers can positively impact participants’ experience by acknowledging the emergent nature of the process in order to reduce participant apprehension, thereby limiting the barriers to participation.
Highlights
Co-design involves stakeholders as design partners to ensure a better fit to user needs
In co-design, stakeholders are involved as equal partners and co-creators, and the experiences of users and communities are at the core of the design process.[8,9]
Many benefits of PPI and participatory design have been identified in the literature, such as the ability to capture experiences of patients and health-care providers (HCPs), ensuring that researchers, leaders and policymakers understand the reality and challenges faced by service users and deliverers.[3,9]
Summary
Co-design involves stakeholders as design partners to ensure a better fit to user needs. Organizers of co-design should be conscious of establishing and maintaining a genuine partnership where participants are involved as equal partners and co-creators This can be done through the continuous use of feedback to allow participants to influence the workshop directions, and through limiting researcher domination. By using a more ‘bottom-up’ approach, local needs and concerns are reflected, building stakeholder commitment, subsequently improving the likelihood of implementation success.[2,15]
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