Co-designing a digital family-led intervention for delirium prevention and management in adult critically ill patients: An application of the double diamond design process

Background

Co-designing healthcare interventions is gaining recognition as a novel and collaborative method. Co-design involves end-users from the start, ensuring that an intervention best meets their needs. Despite its potential benefits, this approach is not yet widely used in developing clinical interventions within intensive care units where the perspectives of patients, family members, and clinicians are crucial.

Objective

To describe the application, benefits and challenges of the Double Diamond model to co-design a digital family-led voice reorientation intervention for delirium prevention and management in critically ill adult patients.

Methods

The co-design process was guided by the Double Diamond model over a period of 12 months. Development involved patients, family members, and nursing and medical staff as co-designers and decision-makers in the iterative development of the intervention. Data from field notes and group meetings were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and content analysed at each phase, which were then presented to the co-designers for verification and refinement.

Findings

Co-designers included people with lived experience of the ICU as patients (n = 5) and family members (n = 1) and clinical experts (nursing staff n = 3; medical staff n = 3). Co-designers were highly engaged and reported positive experiences and collaboration in the co-design process. Sharing the diversity of their own personal ICU experiences was found to be beneficial as it not only validated individual feelings but also strengthened intervention development. Differences in interpretations and meanings of the voice messages proposed as part of the intervention were challenging. Maintaining sufficient focus on each phase of the Double Diamond was difficult due to the complexity of the context in which the intervention was being co-designed and the resulting challenges of maintaining the engagement of the co-designers throughout the process.

Conclusions

There were benefits and challenges of engaging people with lived experience in an intensive care unit as co-designers through the Double Diamond design process to develop a digital family-led intervention for delirium prevention and management. Overall, applying the Double Diamond to co-design a clinical intervention is recommended, whereby the collaboration process benefits patients, family members, and clinical staff.

Registration number

ACTRN12622001568707; ANZCTR — Registration.