A rapid review of digital approaches for the participatory development of health-related interventions

Objectives: Using participatory approaches to design health interventions is promising, and the ongoing digitalization has enabled the development of diverse digital formats for this purpose. These digital formats bring forth distinct advantages and challenges that should be carefully considered. This rapid review aims to present an overview of digital formats employed in participatory health intervention development and their reported benefits and barriers.

Design: A qualitative rapid review was conducted, following recommendations by the Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group. The literature search was carried out in October 2022 and encompassed the PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, and Cochrane CENTRAL databases. Studies were included if they were published in 2010 or later and reported the development of a health-related intervention employing digital formats in the participatory process.

Results: A total of 22 studies were included. We identified three types of digital formats used for participatory health intervention development: web-based participatory formats (n = 14), digital participatory visual formats (n = 5), and digital participatory mapping (n = 3). The reported benefits of applying digital formats included enhanced participant anonymity, increased time and cost efficiency, and more flexibility regarding scheduling and extent of participation. Among the reported barriers were sufficient internet connectivity, required technical skills, and online fatigue.

Conclusion: The review shows a variety of digital formats employed to develop participatory health interventions. Yet, these methods are primarily digital adaptations of pre-existing analog formats. Innovative digital approaches involving, for example, virtual reality devices remain largely unused. The review also revealed a need for establishing shared terminology and reporting standards to facilitate communication, comparison, and synthesis of findings in this evolving area of research.