An accessible analytical approach for investigating what happens between the rounds of a Delphi study

The Delphi method is used to investigate consensus amongst a panel of exper ts using repeated rounds of a questionnaire, often in healthcare settings. However, many Delphi studies do not report any investigation into what happ ens to the stability of consensus or the convergence of agreement between t he rounds in the study, which may be of importance. In this paper an access ible analytical approach is outlined using graphical presentations of means and standard deviations to identify what happens between rounds. For Delph i studies where the scale upon which experts are expressing their opinions can be considered to be interval, the mean will represent the group opinion whilst the standard deviation will represent the level of agreement. An ex ample Delphi study from a healthcare setting is used to illustrate the meth odology.