Co-Designing a Virtual Reality Intervention for Adolescents With Psychosis

Involving patients and clinicians in creating digital mental health treatments can ensure engaging, acceptable, and feasible interventions. Co-design is particularly important when developing treatments for young people suffering from severe mental health disorders. The purposes of this paper are to (1) provide a detailed example of a co-design procedure; and (2) offer guidance and recommendations to other researchers and mental health professionals who are seeking to co-design digital treatments for adolescents with severe mental health disorders.

The co-design procedure was structured into three phases which served as a framework: Phase 1 Identify and defining the problem; Phase 2 Creating the intervention; Phase 3 Initial testing. During the three phases we used self-administered questionnaires, qualitative interviews, focus group interviews, standardised clinical interviews, and workshops.

A total of 62 participants were involved in the co-design procedure. The participants were involved in phases depending on aim and need. The co-design procedure led to the development of a VR-assisted CBTp treatment for adolescents with psychosis to be tested in future clinical trials. This paper highlights the importance of involving adolescents, clinical expertise, and software developers in planning and development of this intervention.

This co-designing procedure yields support to researchers and mental health professionals aiming to co-design digital treatments for adolescents with severe mental health disorders.