Designathons in health research: a global systematic review

Abstract

IntroductionA designathon is a three-stage participatory activity informed by design thinking. There is a growing literature on designathons in health. This study synthesised designathons’ effectiveness and implementation-related factors to address health challenges.MethodsWe searched Cochrane Library, Embase, PubMed, Scopus and the ClinicalTrials.gov registry for articles containing primary data on designathons for health from their dates of inception to 29 November 2022. We retrieved additional studies from citation searching and a complementary open call. We synthesised data on designathons’ effectiveness (ie, engagement, outputs and implementation), required resources and implementation-related factors (ie, resources, facilitators, barriers, strengths and limitations). We assessed the risk of bias using a checklist adapted from Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal tools.ResultsIn total, 4973 citations were identified, and 42 studies were included. In total, 26 studies (62%) were from high-income countries. The median number of total participants was 49, divided into a median of 8 teams. The duration of the intensive collaboration phase ranged from 3 hours to 7 days. Common evaluation criteria were feasibility, innovation and impact. Idea and prototype outputs included mobile phone applications, educational programmes and medical devices. Interventions developed from a designathon was estimated to be highly cost-effective. The most common facilitators were interdisciplinary participants and high-quality mentorship. The most common barriers were suboptimal execution of the events, difficulties in balancing interdisciplinary participants across teams and limited support for participants along the process. There were limited data on required resources and further implementation of solutions after designathons.ConclusionGiven designathons’ adaptability in terms of budget, mode of delivery, type of output and involvement of diverse participants, including end users, designathons can be implemented in a wide range of contexts to address various health issues.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42023389685.

Co-designing interventions to strengthen the primary health care system for the management of hypertension and type 2 diabetes in China

“… 14 This also resonates with a recent systematic review on research co-design (which was referred to as “designathons”), stating that it promotes collaboration across various stakeholders, including research end users and experts from diverse fields, in developing solutions. 28 In addition, some researchers observed the co-design activities to be “fun and empowering” for older participants in a study on depression. 19 Therefore, it has the potential to be an effective method to proactively engage multiple stakeholders to generate mutually agreed solutions, particularly in the PHC system, where it naturally involves a myriad of grassroots stakeholders.…”

“…According to a recent systematic review, the co-design approach has strong adaptability in its delivery modes, output types, and could cater to diverse stakeholders, which could be further explored and implemented in a wide range of health issues. 28 Second, our inclusion of multiple diverse study sites created a coherent set of shared goals while also taking into consideration regional variation and the need to customise interventions to local contexts. Third, the intervention components highly align with China's existing health system and services, particularly the NEPHSP provided at PHC facilities, which increases the relevance, feasibility, and scalability of the interventions.…”

Awareness Levels About Specialty Services Offered by the Faculty of Dentistry in Sebha, Libya

“…Many public health projects utilizing human-centered design have recently emerged [5]. A designathon is a crowd-sourced activity where a large group generates solutions and increases public awareness about health challenges [6]. Caring for Providers to Improve Patient Experience (CPIPE) intervention has 5 components: provider training, peer support, mentorship, embedded champions, and leadership engagement [7].…”