Delphi

Phase 1: Delphi Questionnaire

The study employed a Delphi process in order to gauge the degrees of consensus and disagreement amongst various stakeholders around the issues of recovery and care coordination e.g. service users, carers, professionals (see Professional Delphi Information Sheet Final Version 03.09.10) and national policy experts. Delphi techniques are part of a larger group of ‘consensus methods’ which aim to gather expert opinion from appropriate individuals with experience of the research topics in question. The same questionnaire is administered multiple times and respondents are invited to reconsider or modify their responses in light of others’ opinions at the end of each round.

This Delphi process was administered over two rounds. The first round used purposive sampling through an open-ended questionnaire sent out to people either by post or email and returned to an administrator. At this first stage of the Delphi, 19 professionals, 9 policy makers, 29 service users and 25 carers took part. The insights from this round were used to inform the development of the questions for round 2. A common problem with the Delphi technique concerns withdrawals from the study. By the end of the final ‘round’ of the Delphi, the following groups and numbers of respondents remained; 9 service users, 10 carers, 2 mental health professionals and 9 mental health policy experts. The findings can be explored elsewhere on this website.