Table 2 Nominal Group Technique protocol

1. Silent generation of ideas: In this step, participants used sticky notes to write down as many research priorities as they could think of, on their own, without consulting their peers

2. Sharing of ideas: each participant presented their ideas and put their sticky notes up on a shared board

3. Group discussion and grouping of ideas: participants, as a group, discussed the ideas presented. No ideas were eliminated, but some ideas were grouped into common themes or groupings. For ideas to be grouped, the participant who generated the idea needed to agree that the idea was the same as the others in the group

4. Voting and ranking: after discussion participants voted individually, in silence

5. Compilation of votes and feedback: votes were compiled, and priority ranking lists were fed back to participants. At this point, steps 3 through 5 restart as the priority lists often generate new ideas and points of discussion for participants, causing some participants to change their rank order. Steps 3–5 were repeated twice (secret ballot 1 and 2) in small groups and twice (secret ballot 3 and 4) in the large group