Developing a Consensus for Adolescent and Young Adult mHealth HIV Prevention Interventions in the United States: Delphi Method (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Engaging adolescents and young adults (AYA) who are at elevated risk for HIV acquisition or who are living with HIV in healthcare has posed a major challenge in HIV prevention and care efforts. Mobile health (mHealth) interventions are a popular and accessible strategy to support AYA engagement despite barriers to care present along the HIV care continuum. Even with progress in the field of mHealth research, expert recommendations for the process of designing, evaluating, and implementing HIV-related mHealth interventions are underdeveloped. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to compile expert recommendations on the development, evaluation, and implementation of AYA-focused HIV prevention and care mHealth interventions. METHODS Experts from adolescent mHealth HIV research networks and investigators of recently funded HIV mHealth projects and programs were identified and invited to complete a series of electronic surveys related to the design, implementation, and evaluation of HIV-related mHealth interventions. A modified Delphi method was used to ask experts to score 35 survey items on a 4-point Likert scale from not important to very important and encouraged experts to leave additional comments in text boxes. Responses were reviewed by the researchers, a team of four HIV mHealth intervention experts. The average importance ratings from survey responses were calculated and then categorized as retained (high importance), flagged (mid-level importance), or dropped (no/low importance). Additionally, thematic analysis of expert comments helped modify survey items for the next survey round. An evaluation of the level of agreement among experts on the most important items followed each round until consensus was reached. RESULTS Of the 35 invited experts, 23 completed the first survey representing a variety of roles within a research team. Following two rounds of Delphi surveys, experts scored 86% of the 30 survey items included in round two as important to very important. The final consensus items included 24 recommendations related to the mHealth intervention design process (n=15), evaluation (n=2), and implementation (n=7). The three survey items with the highest average scores focused on the design process, specifically, (1) creating a diverse team including researchers, app software developers, youth representation, (2) the importance of AYA-focused content, and the (3) value of an iterative process. Additionally, experts highlighted the importance of establishing the best ways to collect data and the types of data for collection during the evaluation process as well as constructing a plan for participant technology disruption when implementing an mHealth intervention. CONCLUSIONS The modified Delphi method was a useful tool to convene experts to determine recommendations for AYA-focused HIV prevention and care mHealth interventions. These recommendations can inform future mHealth interventions. To ensure acceptability, feasibility, and efficacy of these AYA HIV prevention interventions, the focus must be on specific needs of AYA by including representation of AYA in the process, including consistent and relevant content, ensuring appropriate data is collected, and considering technology and health accessibility barriers.

Fundamentals of Delphi Research Methodology

Although the Delphi method was designed as a forecasting tool for the RAND Corporation in the 1950s, in the last several decades, this research methodology is commonly used for facilitating consensus in many fields such as business, education, and nursing. Because of the increased use of the Delphi method, more information is needed for researchers to precisely execute a successful Delphi study. This chapter briefly introduces the Delphi method, reviews the methodology, discusses types and variations in Delphi studies, addresses the advantages and limitations, and provides clear, step-by-step guidelines for employing a Delphi method research study.

Training Program Analysis for Incidents in Hydrogen Refueling Stations

As the number of hydrogen refueling stations has increased rapidly in recent times, evaluating their incident training programs for first responders, has gained importance. In this study, the Delphi method was used for investigating the training programs, and the importance of the consensus programs was analyzed using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Location and operating methods of the emergency shutdown devices, safety distance, and response procedures depending on the hydrogen refueling station and hydrogen vehicle, were deduced. The results reveal that the training regarding emergency shutdown devices is the most important, followed by the one regarding safety distance. Quantitative analysis with regard to the training programs for hydrogen refueling stations can improve the response capability of first responders.

Research on the Reform Direction of Ideological and Political Course Teaching Based on Online Open Courses

In the context of the “Internet +” era, educational information has become an inevitable trend in educational development. The successive introduction of relevant policies has laid the foundation for the steady development of educational information. Online open courses are an important means to expand teaching space and time, and this article aims to open up a new direction for the teaching reform and development of ideological and political courses through the combination of ideological and political courses and online open courses. This article proposes the analytic hierarchy process and the Delphi method. First, the Delphi method is used to revise the initially constructed indicator system; then, the analytic hierarchy process is used to design the weights of the indicator system; finally, we try to apply the established index system. The experimental results of this paper show that teacher expression and curriculum content have a greater impact on classroom teaching. The weight of teacher expression is 0.25, and the weight of curriculum content is 0.26.

EMPLOYING THE FUZZY DELPHI METHOD TO VALIDATE COMMUNICATION SKILLS AMONG ENGINEERING GRADUATES

Delphi strategy may be a method and organized approach utilized to audit and collect suppositions of a gather of specialists, be that as it may, has it possess shortcomings. The Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM), which is based on a variation of the Delphi method, has been demonstrated to be more successful in showing human phonetic knowledge in numerous tests (which is the signature of the Delphi Procedure). The Fuzzy Delphi Method was used to assess the content of communication abilities among engineering graduates in this article. This stage of development could be part of a larger project to develop a Malaysian employability aptitude system. This stage includes the view of 10 specialists who are experienced and have profound information in designing. It may be a thorough factual examination to approve the legitimacy of the theoretical concept of communication skills. The results of the experts' analysis were presented in the study, as well as the usefulness of the Fuzzy Delphi Method as a tool for gathering information about the validity of communication abilities content. Experts' recognitions have appeared disjointed about communication and get it more than one dialect among engineers. The specialists concurred with building graduates it can be donated by a clear heading, tune in and inquire address in their employability aptitudes capability.

Unifying The Evaluation Criteria Of Many Objectives Optimization Using Fuzzy Delphi Method

Many objective optimizations (MaOO) algorithms that intends to solve problems with many objectives (MaOP) (i.e., the problem with more than three objectives) are widely used in various areas such as industrial manufacturing, transportation, sustainability, and even in the medical sector. Various approaches of MaOO algorithms are available and employed to handle different MaOP cases. In contrast, the performance of the MaOO algorithms assesses based on the balance between the convergence and diversity of the non-dominated solutions measured using different evaluation criteria of the quality performance indicators. Although many evaluation criteria are available, yet most of the evaluation and benchmarking of the MaOO with state-of-art algorithms perform using one or two performance indicators without clear evidence or justification of the efficiency of these indicators over others. Thus, unify a set of most suitable evaluation criteria of the MaOO is needed. This study proposed a distinct unifying model for the MaOO evaluation criteria using the fuzzy Delphi method. The study followed a systematic procedure to analyze 49 evaluation criteria, sub-criteria, and its performance indicators, a penal of 23 domain experts, participated in this study. Lastly, the most suitable criteria outcomes are formulated in the unifying model and evaluate by experts to verify the appropriateness and suitability of the model in assessing the MaOO algorithms fairly and effectively.