Co-design of Digital Health Interventions for Young Adults: Protocol for a Scoping Review

Background: Digital health interventions, including apps and web-based services, are on the rise due to their facilitated access to target groups. The constant evolution of technology calls for participatory research methodologies to understand youth expectations and the use of technology. The creative and collaborative nature of co-design allows for the active integration of youth desires and may enhance acceptability when it comes to digital health tools.

Objective: The primary objective of this review is to assess the breadth of literature on digital health interventions that have been co-designed for and by young adults, including the types of available evidence, the identification of key characteristics relevant to young adult co-design, and the examination of research conduct in this space.

Methods: The proposed scoping review will be conducted in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Manual for Scoping Reviews. As well as the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) checklist for reporting scoping reviews, an adaptation of Arksey and O'Malley's 6-stage framework for scoping reviews will be referenced. Peer-reviewed primary research, where young adults (aged 15-35 years) were actively involved in the design and development process of digital health interventions, will be collated for analyses. Five databases, including MEDLINE (Ovid), Cochrane, CINAHL Plus, Google Scholar, and Scopus, will be searched for relevant papers. Search strategies will be comprehensive to identify both published and unpublished literature. Relevant gray literature and secondary research will be excluded but pooled for separate analysis and citation chaining. Results will be presented in one or multiple forms, including narrative, tabular, or diagrammatic.

Results: Data collection commenced in October 2021. Following data extraction according to the JBI results extraction instrument and independent quality assurance of included studies, a narrative synthesis of each paper included in the final pool will allow for data charting. As of May 2022, 19 papers are included for analysis. We expect the results to be published by autumn 2022.

Conclusions: This protocol provides guidance for researchers who plan to conduct a similar style of investigation and promotes standardization of the scoping review process. We anticipate the provision of an overview of participatory digital health research involving young adults, highlighting any gaps in this research area, as well as potential areas for further study.

International registered report identifier (irrid): DERR1-10.2196/38635.