Abstract
Background: There is increasing interest in digital technologies to help improve children and young people’s mental health, and the evidence for the effectiveness for these approaches is rising. However, there is concern regarding levels of user engagement, uptake and adherence. Key guidance regarding digital health interventions stress the importance of early user input in the development, evaluation and implementation of technologies to help ensure they are engaging, feasible, acceptable and potentially effective. Co-design is a process of active involvement of stakeholders, requiring a change from the traditional approaches to intervention development. However, there is a lack of literature to inform the co-design of digital technologies to help child and adolescent mental health. Methods: We reviewed the literature and practice in the co-design of digital mental health technologies with children and young people. We searched Medline, PsycInfo and Web of Science databases, guidelines, reviews and reference lists, contacted key authors for relevant studies, and extracted key themes on aspects of co-design relevant to practice. We supplemented this with case studies and methods reported by researchers working in the field. Results: We identified 25 original articles and 30 digital mental health technologies that were designed/developed with children and young people. The themes identified were as follows: principles of co-design (including potential stakeholders and stages of involvement), methods of involving and engaging the range of users, co-designing the prototype and the challenges of co-design. Conclusions: Co-design involves all relevant stakeholders throughout the life and research cycle of the programme. This review helps to inform practitioners and researchers interested in the development of digital health technologies for children and young people. Future work in this field will need to consider the changing face of technology, methods of engaging with the diversity in the user group, and the evaluation of the co-design process and its impact on the technology.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 928-940 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| Early online date | 22 Jun 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 31 Aug 2020 |
Funding
R.B.J. is supported by the Welsh Government through Health and Care Research Wales (National Institute for Health Research Fellowship, NIHR‐PDF‐2018), and the authors thank them for their support. S.R. is supported by a Career Development Fellowship (APP115888) and M.A.J. is supported by an Investigator Grant (APP1177235) from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia. A.W.S. is supported by a NSW Health Fellowship. S.S. is supported by the Medical Research Council and the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates (MC_UU_12017_14, SPHSU14). The authors thank all CYP, parents/carers, practitioners, designers and researchers who have collaborated with us in our studies. The intellectual property for SPARX is held by UniServices. S.M. and K.S. stand to gain financially from any commercialisation of SPARX. J.K. is a co‐founder of Neuromotion Labs, which developed/commercialised Mightier. The remaining authors have declared that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest.
Keywords
- adolescent
- Child
- co-design
- development
- digital
- e-health
- mental health
- technologies
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Psychiatry and Mental health
