Priorities for cancer caregiver intervention research : A three-round modified Delphi study to inform priorities for participants, interventions, outcomes, and study design characteristics

Key points:
• A three-round modified Delphi study, guided by the PICO Framework, was conducted to ascertain cancer caregiver priorities in the areas of participants, interventions, outcomes, and study designs.

• Twenty-five Delphi participants, consisting of healthcare, allied health or academics with extensive clinical practice, or research experience in caregiver research, completed surveys over three rounds.

• Round 1 contributions were varied and extensive and 125 codes were generated, and over round 2 and round 3, 49 items were assessed for priority and consensus.

• High priorities included participants identified as minority groups or disadvantaged, those who are isolated and those identified as needing support; interventions that are sustainable and tailored; outcomes that are important to caregivers and studies that assess the long-term impact of interventions.

• Optimising approaches to conduct these studies, complementing these findings with qualitative data, and including caregiver perspectives are important avenues of future work.