Co-design in health research: A scoping review on evaluation surveys for co-design processes, outputs and impacts
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Health research that fails to create benefits for end-users, such as patients and healthcare professionals, is wasteful and costs the healthcare system billions of dollars (1-3). Reducing research waste and translating research into practice requires research questions, interventions and outcomes that are relevant to end-users (4, 5). Engaging appropriate end-users in research co-design may help facilitate research translation. Research co-design can be defined as meaningful end-user engagement that can take place across all stages of the research process, from the research planning phase to dissemination of findings, and ranges in intensity (6). End-users can be patients, members of the public, carers, healthcare professionals or other relevant parties in health research. Although co-design is being used widely in health research, the current literature does not provide much guidance around how to evaluate co-design approaches. Evaluation of research co-design is important to identify areas of improvement in the methods and processes, as well as to determine whether research co-design leads to better outcomes. An overview of reviews and panel meetings with relevant end-users led to the development of a research co-design evaluation framework (7). Although the framework can assist with what co-design processes and impacts to evaluate, it does not provide guidance around how to evaluate this (i.e., methods and measures). Boivin and colleagues conducted a literature search about co-design evaluation surveys in February 2016 (Boivin et al., 2018) but this review only explored evaluation of co-design with patients and members of the public and not co-design with other end-users in health (such as healthcare professionals and policy makers). Given the co-design field is growing rapidly, an updated search is needed as well as the inclusion of co-design with healthcare professionals and other relevant end-users. No existing or ongoing reviews were found. Co-design evaluation can be based on quantitative as well as on qualitative methods. This review only focuses on surveys but the authors acknowledge that an exploration of qualitative methods would be recommended in the future. Review question This scoping review aims to identify existing evaluation surveys for co-design processes, outputs and impacts in the current health research literature and map these to an existing research co-design evaluation framework.
Source: OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints)
Language: English
Subfield: General Health Professions
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7222908350