Design for Health and Healing Environments: A Systematic Review Protocol of Design Thinking Process Models

Project Description This project presents the protocol for a systematic review examining design thinking process models in healthcare and healing environment contexts. Design thinking has increasingly been adopted as a human‑centred and iterative approach to addressing complex challenges in healthcare innovation, service design and health‑related environments. However, existing literature often presents design thinking models as holistic frameworks without systematically comparing their internal structures, stages, activities, tools and feedback mechanisms. The aim of this systematic review is to identify, map and synthesise design thinking process models reported in academic and professional literature related to healthcare and healing environments. The review focuses on analysing the structural components of these models, including stages, activities, methods, techniques and feedback processes. The review will follow the PRISMA‑P 2015 guidelines for systematic review protocols and the PRISMA 2020 reporting framework for the final review. Literature searches will be conducted in Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection, supplemented by targeted searches in Google Scholar and other traceable scholarly sources when necessary. Eligibility criteria are structured using the SPIDER framework. Two reviewers will independently conduct study screening and data extraction using a structured extraction form. Findings will be synthesised through comparative mapping, thematic abstraction and narrative synthesis. The purpose of registering this protocol is to enhance transparency, reduce the risk of duplication and provide a clear methodological framework prior to conducting the systematic review.