Co-creation and stroke rehabilitation: a scoping review

Abstract

Purpose

Co-creation is identified as a concept with potential to address many challenges in modern healthcare systems. Its application within stroke rehabilitation is yet to be reviewed. The purpose of this paper is to identify when and how co-creation has been used in the literature to develop services and approaches to stroke survivor care and rehabilitation.

Materials and methods

A scoping review was conducted guided by the framework outlined by Arksey and O'Malley. Articles were included if they involved co-creation with stroke survivors and identified co-creation as their methodology to develop post-stroke services. Quality appraisal of included articles was completed.

Results

The search strategy identified 565 articles. Fourteen articles met inclusion criteria. The results demonstrate that co-creation as a methodology to develop stroke rehabilitation services is a contemporary field, producing both technology and non-technology-based interventions, predominately in the community context. Co-creation application was inconsistent, with a plethora of methodologies used, and terminology to describe co-creation varying between the studies.

Conclusions

Co-creation in stroke rehabilitation is currently in an expanding and rudimentary phase. This review identified the variability of its application, with future work needed to establish clarity and consistency in terminology and methodologies utilised to operationalise co-creation in stroke rehabilitation.

Implications for rehabilitation

• Co-creation is a contemporary and evolving service improvement approach in stroke rehabilitation, utilised most commonly in the community context.

• Inconsistent terminology and diverse methodologies are utilised to enact co-creation in stroke rehabilitation.

• Opportunities exist to advance co-creation in the stroke rehabilitation space through developing consistency in its application, and further investigation into its use with the stroke survivor population.

Keywords:

• Cerebrovascular accident (CVA)
• participatory
• service development
• co-design
• co-production
• neurological rehabilitation

Authors contributions

The first author (JD) was responsible for writing the manuscript and was involved all stages of the research and scoping review process. This included research question generation, creating and conducting the search strategy, developing criteria for inclusion, the study selection process, data extraction and charting. The first author also completed the quality appraisal process. The second author (LG) was involved in research question generation, creating the search strategy, developing criteria for inclusion, the study selection process, data extraction and charting. The second author was involved in editing the manuscript and reviewed the quality appraisal process. The third author (KW) was involved in research question generation, creating the search strategy, developing criteria for inclusion, acted as a mediator for conflicts during the study selection process and assisted to clarify aspects of data extraction and charting when required. The third author was also involved in editing the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Data availability statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the School of Allied Health Sciences and Social Work Honours Support Scheme – Griffith University.