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©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Methodol. Jul 20, 2021; 11(4): 116-129
Published online Jul 20, 2021. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v11.i4.116
Published online Jul 20, 2021. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v11.i4.116
Delphi methodology in healthcare research: How to decide its appropriateness
Prashant Nasa, Department of Critical Care Medicine, NMC Specialty Hospital, Dubai 00000, United Arab Emirates
Ravi Jain, Critical Care Medicine, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Hospital, Jaipur 302001, Rajasthan, India
Deven Juneja, Institute of Critical Care Medicine, Max Super Speciality Hospital, New Delhi 110017, India
Author contributions: Nasa P, Jain R, and Juneja D contributed equally to this work; Nasa P and Jain R designed the idea of the study; Nasa P, Jain R, and Juneja D performed the systematic search of the literature; Nasa P contributed the figures; Jain R and Nasa P analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Prashant Nasa declared to be on the advisory board of Edwards life sciences. Other authors do not declare any conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Prashant Nasa, MD, Chief Doctor, Department of Critical Care Medicine, NMC Specialty Hospital, Al Nahda 2, Dubai 00000, United Arab Emirates. dr.prashantnasa@hotmail.com
Received: January 12, 2021
Peer-review started: January 12, 2021
First decision: February 14, 2021
Revised: February 26, 2021
Accepted: May 19, 2021
Article in press: May 19, 2021
Published online: July 20, 2021
Peer-review started: January 12, 2021
First decision: February 14, 2021
Revised: February 26, 2021
Accepted: May 19, 2021
Article in press: May 19, 2021
Published online: July 20, 2021
Core Tip
Core Tip: There are no standard quality parameters to evaluate Delphi methods in healthcare research. Delphi methods’ vital elements include anonymity, iteration, controlled feedback, and statistical stability of consensus. Published studies have used modified versions of Delphi, and details on methods like expert panel selection, defining consensus, or closing criteria for Delphi rounds are not explicit. We suggest quality assessment tools for readers and researchers for a systematic assessment of Delphi studies.