Establishing pediatric cancer nursing research priorities: a Delphi study

The purpose of this study was to have pediatric oncology nurses identify and rate topic priorities for clinical nursing research in the specialty and to determine if nurses in a pediatric cancer center identified different priorities than did nursing colleagues in other settings. The sample consisted of 44 nurses from a comprehensive pediatric cancer center and 43 nurses attending the 12th Annual APON Conference. A decision-making method, the classical Delphi technique, was used. Three rounds of soliciting opinions by questionnaires were completed, and data from each round were reviewed and categorized by a research team of six nurses until group consensus was achieved. The majority of priorities identified by both groups concerned nursing procedures, the pediatric oncology patient, and the specialty itself. The least number of priorities were in the categories of care delivery systems and families. One difference between the two groups was that professional issues dominated the cancer center sample, whereas psychosocial issues were more prominent in the APON sample.