delphi method

Managers, as the main decision-makers in facing various internal and external organizational problems, play a significant and determining role in the success or even failure of an organization. If competent and experienced managers are positioned at the top of organizations, the success of these organizations in achieving their goals will be guaranteed and an organization can achieve maximum efficiency with minimal resources. The aim of this study was to design a model of managerial competencies for hospital managers.

This qualitative research was conducted from year 2020 to 2022. After reviewing studies related to the topic, the extracted competencies were given to 19 experts consisted of relevant academic faculty members and managers with experience in the healthcare system and hospitals. Eventually, a managerial competency model was formulated through the use of the Delphi method and expert panel discussions. Collected data were analyzed in Excel software.

The developed model in this research for the concept of hospital managers’ competencies includes 33 managerial competencies of hospital managers in four main management functions (planning, organizing, leadership and control) and managerial roles, which starts from literature review and performing two Delphi steps and implementing two expert panel plans. In the competency of hospital managers model, the planning dimension consists 4 components, organizing consists 4 components, leadership consists 12 components, control consists 4 components, and managerial roles consists 9 components. Strategic thinking, which is a subset of planning, has the highest weight (0.495) and highest rank among other components, and continuous improvement, which is a subset of managerial roles, has the lowest weight (0.033) and lowest rank among other components.

This study proposes an exclusive and comprehensive model, utilizing practical techniques as a suitable solution for evaluating the managerial competencies of hospital managers. The proposed framework in this study can serve as a standard performance assessment tool for evaluating managers.

Diabetes mellitus is a spreading disease in the world. Despite the effective role of supportive resources in diabetes management, there is currently no documented plan for the use of these resources in diabetic patients. So the research team, while designing a support resource-based care program based on qualitative study and systematic review, conducted the present study with the aim of validating the program in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus using the Delphi method.

This is a methodological study conducted to validate the Delphi care program. Panel members included 15 experts in the field of diabetes, who were selected by the snowball method. The data collection tool was a structured questionnaire with 38 questions that were designed based on different parts of the care plan. The data was analyzed using SPSS software (version 18), and the percentage of agreement with the questionnaire dialects continued until a consensus was reached.

In the first round of Delphi, the preliminary draft of the care plan was drafted and amended based on the suggestions and corrective opinions of the participants. Then the contents of the questionnaire questions were prepared. In the second round of Delphi and the consensus on the dialects of the questionnaire, the percentage of agreement of the members of the expert panel based on the questionnaire questions was obtained at 93.5.

Given that the scientific and practical acceptability of the care program based on support resources, based on the questions raised in the present study, was "very high" and "high", it is recommended that this program be used to design and complete related programs at the national level.

The present study aimed to identify and prioritize the factors affecting the desire to leave the job of employees of a health center in Ahvaz City, Iran.

A descriptive-analytical study was conducted in health centers in Ahvaz in 2023. The factors influencing the desire to leave a job were identified through a literature review and the fuzzy Delphi method. Additionally, 100 employees completed Kim's Turnover Tendency Scale. In the final step, the identified factors were weighted and prioritized using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP).

A total of 32 effective factors influencing the desire to leave work were identified and categorized into four groups: individual factors, organizational factors, job factors, and job-related factors. The findings from the AHP method indicated that age (0.213), education level (0.176), and work experience (0.143) from the category of individual factors, as well as salary, type of employment, and lack of promotion opportunities from the category of organizational factors, leadership and management style (0.243), changes in job descriptions (0.243), and organizational position (0.198), along with the employment of unqualified individuals (0.147) from the category of managerial factors, were identified as the most significant risk factors predicting the intention to leave a job among employees in health centers.

By identifying and prioritizing the factors affecting the desire to leave the job among the employees of health centers, preventive measures can be defined and implemented to maintain the human resources providing health services.

This study aims to identify and prioritize the educational needs of older adults in Iran as a prerequisite for developing any educational intervention for them.

In this study, the interviews and content analysis were used to identify the needs, and the Delphi method was used to prioritize them. Three target groups were experts in the fields of education and geriatrics, caregivers of older adults, and older adults. Purposive sampling was used for sampling. The final samples consisted of 45 people.

The results of content analysis by Sterberg’s method, 13 themes were extracted which were sent to the participants for prioritization using the Delphi method. Finally, after two rounds, the participants agreed by 96% on the priority of the most needs, which were: 1) Health-promoting skills, 2) Management of negative emotions and feelings, 3) Self-knowledge, 4) Sense of satisfaction, 5) Interpersonal communication skills, and 6) Self-learning.

With age, physical health and negative emotions management skills decline and with the limitation of the circle of friends and relatives due to retirement or death, social health is also at risk. Proper knowledge about old age and acquiring self-learning skills are key elements to overcome the challenges of this period. The educational centers in Iran should provide education to older adults about health-promoting skills, how to manage negative emotions, knowledge about old age and self-learning skills, and communication skills.

Limitations of foreign exchange resources have caused the medical tourism industry to gain special importance. Based on this, the current research was conducted with the aim of designing and validating a model of medical tourism in two qualitative and quantitative stages.

This research is exploratory in terms of purpose and descriptive in terms of type. The contributors in the qualitative stage were 30 doctors in Ardabil Province in 2022, who were purposively selected by chain referral sampling; and in the second stage, based on the Morgan table, 201 employees working in the University of Medical Sciences were selected. In the qualitative phase, the data collection tool was a semi-structured interview that was conducted using Delphi method, and in the quantitative stage, the redesigned questionnaire resulting from the first stage and the structural equation modeling was used.

Based on the findings, the following components were identified as the components effective on medical tourism: economic growth (β=0.433), entrepreneurial ecosystem (β=0.537), quality of laws (β=0.437), social networks (β=0.346), challenges (β=0.482), diversity of attractions and leisure opportunities (β=0.539), expert workforce (β=0.345), development of tourism policies (β=0.742), respect for opinions (β=0.339), sustainable income (β=0.407), Islamic medical services (β=0.369), effectiveness and efficiency (β=0.454), participation (β=0.608), common language (β=0.523), medical infrastructure (β=0.427), costs (β=0.384), natural capacities (β=0.375), and medical services tariff (β=0.517).

Developing tourism policies and having roadmap have significant contributions to the development of medical tourism. Increasing public participation, creating related jobs, introducing tourist attractions, economic liberalization, and improving political relations and visa regulations are effective cross-sectorial policies.

Expanding resilience and educating stress adapting abilities in police forces, particularly amid the understudy period, can act as a mental wellbeing protection calculate not as it were amid the understudy period but moreover amid the service period. Subsequently, the reason of this research was to create a multidimensional resilience protocol with a preventive approach and its effectiveness on stress, mental well-being and resilience of officer understudies.

The research in the first stage is descriptive and was conducted using the Delphi method. In the first step of the protocol validity, the content validity index (CVI) of the sessions was used quantitatively based on the experts' opinions. CVI was calculated by evaluating the opinions of 10 experts (one religious expert) in 4 phases for each step. The second step was a quasi-experimental research with a control group, and the investigated population included all the students of one of the officer and police training universities in Tehran in 1401. The resilience training protocol was actualized in the experimental group (15 individuals) in 12 sessions of 90 minutes and at the end of the study in the control group (15 individuals). The research instruments were Connor's resilience questionnaire, Riff's mental well-being, and depression, anxiety, and stress scale (DASS-21). A resilience checklist was also used for screening (cut point 110). Data were analyzed using SPSS v24 software.

The results of the content validity analysis showed that considering that the CVI value of each of the items or steps related to resilience training was not less than 0.70, the training contents are suitable for the title of each training step. Also, the results of multivariate covariance analysis showed that the resilience training protocol significantly increased (P<0.05) psychological well-being (P=0.001 and F=47.8) and resilience (P=0.003 and F=10.7), and significantly reduced stress (P=0.002 and F=11.6) in the tested group.

The multidimensional resilience training protocol, which was developed with a preventive approach, had good content validity, and it is effective in improving psychological well-being and resilience and reducing the stress of officer students, and its' booklet can be used in military medical and educational centers.

Many general indicators have been proposed to assess an organization’s safety performance. However, due to their holistic nature, these indicators may not always reflect safety-specific aspects of an organization’s performance. In other words, the nature of an organization’s activities necessitates the use of specific criteria to better reflect safety performance. This study aimed to identify and measure key safety performance indicators using the Delphi method in Alborz Province Electric Power Distribution Company.

This descriptive, survey-based study utilized the Delphi method to collect the opinions of 11 safety experts in the electric power distribution industry. Opinions were gathered in four phases, and key indicators were determined in the last phase of the study. These indicators were subsequently used to evaluate the safety performance of Alborz Electric Power Distribution Company for three months.

This study identified and documented 34 safety activities. The expert group proposed 20 indicators in the first phase of the Delphi method. In the second and third phases, four and one indicators were eliminated, respectively, because they did not receive the required score. The content validity ratio (CVR) and content validity index (CVI) were calculated for the remaining 15 indices in the fourth phase. The results revealed that the mean quarterly performance scores of Alborz Province electric power distribution districts and departments in 2016, including Nazarabad, Savojbolagh, Mehrshahr, Fardis, West, East, Taleghan, and Eshtehard, were 78.9, 54.7, 78.8, 75.9, 75.7, 80.8, 61, and 83.5 out of 100 points, respectively.

The Delphi method is useful for identifying key safety performance indicators. The indicators discovered using this technique are active indicators (pre-accident) that are crucial in determining Alborz Electric Power Distribution Company’s safety performance. These indicators are suggested for use in evaluating the safety performance of other electric power distribution companies.

Psychological well-being is one of the important concepts in positive psychology, which means optimal human performance. This issue has caused researchers around the world to pay attention to the underlying factors of well-being, especially in childhood. The present research was conducted with the aim of designing an integrated model of the underlying factors of psychological well-being in children.

This research is descriptive in terms of its purpose and is considered a survey study in terms of data collection. To conduct the research, all the factors related to the issue of psychological well-being in children were identified in the literature by relying on the theoretical foundations and the literature, and further, the validation of the factors was done based on the CVR and CVI tests. The statistical population of the research was the experts in the field of psychology, who especially had studies in the field of children. Purposeful sampling and snowball method were used to select the participants and finally 20 people were considered as a statistical sample. Data analysis was done using fuzzy Delphi method (AHP) and interpretive structural model.

The findings of the research showed that the factors underlying well-being are divided into three dimensions: personal, educational and external, which respectively include factors such as emotional intelligence, personality traits, self-regulation, responsibility, self-efficacy, emotion regulation, perceived social support, mindfulness, and communication patterns. , social stress and anxiety for the individual dimension, parent management training, academic performance, positive intelligence training, life skills training and family performance for the educational dimension and finally, parent-child relationship, family cohesion and flexibility, socio-economic status, social networks , parental employment, internet addiction and computer games can be considered as external factors affecting children's psychological well-being.

Without a doubt, paying attention to the strengthening aspects of some factors along with the inhibiting aspects of other factors can be effective in improving the psychological well-being of children.

Nowadays, responding appropriately to the stakeholders’ expectations is one of the most important factors for organizations effectiveness, especially in the health system, as the responsible of generation, propagation and promotion of health in societies. Analyzing the stakeholders’ evaluation components, this research aims to provide practical information about stakeholders’ management for the head of hospitals in Guilan University of medical science (GUMC).

This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-survey in terms of implementation method. Statistical population includes heads of hospitals in GUMS and academic experts where 19 of them are participated in the research. For screening the components extracted from the literature, fuzzy Delphi method was used, while for analyzing and structuring the components, interpretive structural modeling (ISM) was used. In addition, for data gathering, snowball sampling method and questionnaire tool were used.

Conducting the fuzzy Delphi method, among the 30 components extracted from the literature, 10 factors; stakeholders’ participation, information, relationships, level of need, benefits of cooperation, motivation, planning ability, consistency with the organization goals, possibility of monitoring stakeholders and the importance of the stakeholders’ position were determined as main factors and were structured by the ISM method at three levels.

According to the MICMAC analysis, the indicators of stakeholder’ participation, stakeholder relationships and the importance of the stakeholder's position were recognized as the most important components in stakeholder’s evaluation, which indicates the necessity of managers attention to these factors in the evaluation of stakeholders and using them for achieving to hospital goals.

Cancer and in particular Breast cancer are among the diseases that have the highest mortality rate in Iran after heart disease. The accurate prognosis for Breast cancer is important, and the presence of various symptoms and features of this disease makes it difficult for doctors to diagnose. This study aimed to identify the factors affecting Breast cancer, modeling and ultimately diagnosing the risk of Breast cancer.

In the present study, first, by content analysis and library studies, the effective factors in Breast cancer were identified, then with the help of a team of experts consisting of physicians and subspecialists in Breast oncology and Breast surgery; With the help of the Delphi method, the factors were adjusted and 26 final factors that were numerically correct and string based on local and climatic conditions were approved. Then, according to the final factors and based on the medical records of 5208 patients in the Cancer Research Center of Shahid Beheshti University of medical sciences, to diagnose cancer, Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Support Vector Machine methods were used as machine learning methods.

In the first step, by content analysis method, 29 effective factors in Breast cancer were identified. Then, taking into account the indigenous and climatic conditions and using the Delphi method and also using the opinions of 18 Experts during three years, 26 factors were finalized. In the final step, using the medical records of the patients and the results obtained from the three methods mentioned, random forest, had the highest accuracy of 94.75% and precision of 97.26% in diagnosing Breast cancer. It has been noted that, compared to other similar studies, indigenous databases have been exploited, the accuracy obtained has been very close to previous studies, and in many cases much better.

Using the random forest method and taking advantage of the factors affecting Breast cancer, the ability to diagnose cancer has been provided with greatest accuracy.

Today, one of the most important concerns in the pharmaceutical industry is achieving sustainability, and the pharmaceutical industry is recognized as a leading sector in corporate sustainability reporting. The purpose of this study was to identify, extract, prioritize and analyze the social factors and corporate characteristics which are effective in the sustainability reporting of Iranian pharmaceutical companies.

This was a cross-sectional study conducted in autumm 2020. The expertise and availability principles were used for sampling, and the snowball sampling method was used for sample selection. In order to identify and extract effective social factors and corporate characteristics, the method of content analysis and the study's review of literature have been used. The survey was conducted on 40 experts in the field of research using a researcher-made questionnaire. In order to purify the effective factors, Delphi method and the Analytic Network Process method based on Fuzzy DEMATEL were used.

In terms of a strong interaction, the criterion for university-industry collaborations came first, and the criterion for sustainable innovation and cooperation with other companies came next. In this study, profitability, research and development intensity and the financial leverage were considered to be weak causal variables and sustainability reporting, an effect variable.

The results showed that Iranian pharmaceutical companies, in order to achieve the goals of sustainable development, should emphasize the continuous and regular presentation of annual sustainability reporting, and in this regard, key factors such as the criteria of university-industry collaborations, sustainable innovation and cooperation with other companies should be considered critical priorities.