Social Wellbeing in Service Design: How does Co-creation contribute to the social wellbeing between patients and physiotherapists in order to facilitate recovery pathways?

Rehabilitation services are changing towards a Person-Centred Care approach in which physical, psychological and social wellbeing are involved in the relationship between patients and physiotherapists. However, current research has predominantly focused on the provision of solutions for physical wellbeing.
Research question: How does Co-creation contribute to the social wellbeing between patients and physiotherapists in order to facilitate recovery pathways? By using a service design methodology and co-creation approach, this research investigated the relationships between patients and physiotherapists with a focus on social wellbeing. Data was collected through developing a co-creative interview toolkit that combined semi-structured interviews and co-creative design tools. The relationship was investigated from a total of eight co-creative interviews: four patients with rehabilitation experience lasting more than a year and four physiotherapists. The researchers compared and synthesized the two perspectives.
Results: Concerning the relationship between physiotherapist and patient, we revealed four critical factors evidenced with the insight tree: (1) Lack of communication between patient and physiotherapist when sharing information about the recovery process, (2) Building respect and honesty/meaningful relationship over time, (3) Sharing emotional wellbeing, (4) Setting and reaching goals, were the commonly shared categories in both groups of participants. The four factors allowed the researchers to design the recovery pathway. This was designed to guide the implementation of a new rehabilitation process, in which social wellbeing practices are integrated in new touchpoints interactions among the two actors.