User involvement in developing community-based public health services: a scoping review of methods

Abstract

User involvement in developing community-based public health services has been on the agenda for decades. User involvement refers to the variety of ways in which service users or public citizens participate in the development of health services: from proving information on their needs to actively being involved in decisions about future services. Former studies found that user involvement is meaningful to the people involved and could have a favorable impact on the quality of services. Thus, it is timely to systematically identify and provide a comprehensive overview of user involvement methods used in public health studies. The aim of this scoping review is to provide an overview of the current body of empirical research where user involvement methods have been used to develop community public health services and identify its possible impact on the individual as well as services. A systematic scoping review of user involvement methods aiming to develop public health services followed Arksey and O'Malley, 2005 framework. Six databases: CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Embase, PsycINFO. PubMed, Scopus and ProQuest, were searched from October till November, 2019. Search terms were: user involvement, methods and health care with corresponding synonym. All hits were double screened. 6.044 studies were identified of which 38 studies lived up to the criteria. Preliminary findings from coding and synthesizing studies have identified a variety of user involvement 19 of the studies used complex, multi-facetted packages of methods aiming to identify needs, prioritize and formulate recommendations for future services. 19 studies used different kinds of group meetings and some used certain techniques to facilitate the process. Many reported the impact, and 13 evaluated the methods. The impact of using the methods varied from impact on individual, group, or service/political level. Final results will be presented at the conference. Studies on user involvement methods in developing community public health services and its impact are sparse. User involvement is privotal in developing sustainable public health community services.