Study of Methods for Assessing Research Topic Elicitation and Prioritization (SMARTER) [Methods Study], United States, 2014-2018

Organizations that fund research often seek input on which topics are important to study. Patients can take part in setting priorities for research to help make sure that future studies focus on the topics that matter most to them. Researchers can collect patients' views on which research topics are most important in different ways.
In this study, the research team compared three methods of research priority setting:

Online crowd voting, where patients submit, discuss, and vote on ideas online
Focus groups with nominal group technique, where patients come up with ideas on their own and then discuss those ideas in a group with a moderator
Modified Delphi method, where patients give input through a series of mailed surveys

The research team looked at research topic rankings and experiences with each method among patients with low back pain.