Coping Compass: co-designing a brief online positive psychology programme for youth with chronic conditions

This article presents a case study of a 12-month co-design process with young people (16–25) living with chronic health conditions to create an online, self-guided intervention based on positive psychology. Following an established framework for co-designing with vulnerable consumers, the co-design process was designed with stakeholders to promote accessibility and maximise youth engagement in the design of the programme. This paper outlines the activities used throughout the co-design process, including group discussions, mind maps, individual surveys, and prototyping. In addition, it provides an overview of co-designers’ key motives driving the design of the intervention: ‘validation’, ‘accessibility’, and ‘choice and personalisation’. The resulting programme, entitled Coping Compass, incorporates various design features to achieve these motives, including the inclusion of lived experience content, ‘rest stops’ throughout the intervention, and the ability to personalise programme language regarding health conditions. Co-designers provided overwhelmingly positive feedback on both the co-design process and the final programme design, demonstrating the suitability of the employed techniques for working with and designing interventions for young people living with chronic health conditions.