Employing a User-Centered Elder and Youth Co-creation Approach for a Design of a Medication Bag: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

Medication errors are a common problem in healthcare, particularly in elderly individuals, who often have multiple prescriptions due to chronic diseases. At present, the design of most commercial drug packaging do not take into account the deteriorating sensory, nervous, and musculoskeletal functions of the elderly, leading to errors in taking medications as a consequence of visual and/or behavioral impairments. Attempt have been made to optimize the designs of healthcare products and services, for example, medication bags using experience-based co-design (EBCD), by involving different stakeholders such as elderly individuals; however, the elderly have mostly played passive roles during those processes. Although the elderly were consulted, they rarely in fact participated in the product design process. This study therefore combined EBCD and design thinking to establish a user-centered elder and youth co-creation (EYCC) model, the process of which included five workshops: engage, empathize, define, ideate, and prototype and test. The participants of this study included 9 individuals between the ages of 61 and 74, who themselves or their family members were suffering from chronic diseases and were taking multiple types of medications, and 8 young designers. All participants cooperated together on the redesign of medication bags. The results of this study show that the workshops in the EYCC model improved the general self-efficacy of a number of the elderly participants and significantly improved the empathy of the young designers; however, improvements in drug compliance of the elderly participants were not found. The positive findings of this study can serve as a reference for future co-creation procedures involving the elderly and youth.