Approach for participatory Delphi method for structuring voices, population empowerment and research training

A Delphi panel is a methodology used to generate consensus among experts. The development of a participatory Delphi approach consists of including the research population in the design and conduct of the research. It involves panelists in the preparation of an open-ended questionnaire as well as in the responding process. The answers are organized, anonymized and redistributed to produce a synthesis, which becomes a potential consensus statement. This process takes place during a set number of rounds in which the synthesis of each question is analyzed and graded by the panelists. Finally, syntheses are classified as having a higher, medium or lower consensus. We created a 'change-oriented' Delphi panel in which health-related students are considered the expert population. In this study, we propose a methodology to collect and analyze health-related students' views on education, demonstrating the effectiveness of active student participation and the Delphi approach in designing educational curricula.•This research focuses on how to conduct a Delphi participatory panel in which health-related students contribute to the study design, data collection, and analysis, as well as serving as the expert panelists.•This highly replicable methodology could be applied in the development of education curricula.•Delphi participatory approaches offer a research introduction opportunity.