• Mahshad Noroozi, Bagher Larijani, Saharnaz Nedjat, Kiarash Aramesh, and Pooneh Salari.
• Medical Ethics and History of Medicine Research Center.
• East. Mediterr. Health J. 2020 May 21; 26 (5): 531-538.

BackgroundPriority-setting is one way to develop research in a particular field.AimsWe aimed to identify and prioritize the most important medical ethics issues for research in the Islamic Republic of Iran.MethodsA 3-round Delphi survey was conducted using a questionnaire covering 77 medical ethics topics in 10 categories and subcategories (extracted from literature review); this was emailed to 40 experts in medical ethics. The participants rated categories and subcategories for importance on a 5-point Likert scale and ranked the topics based on their research priorities. The highest Likert score showed the most important issue and the lowest priority score indicated the first priority.ResultsAfter consensus, the panel identified 6 categories as the highest priority and most important areas: professionalism [priority score = 2.66, standard deviation (SD) 2.63, importance score = 4.45, SD 0.72], education (priority score=3.12, SD 1.89, importance score = 4.25, SD 0.84), end of life (priority score = 3.79, SD 1.91, importance score = 4.47, SD 0.66), beginning of life (priority = 4.62, SD 1.68, importance score= 4.26, SD 0.61), public health (priority score = 5.20, SD 2.39, importance score = 4.29, SD 0.75), and ethics in research (priority score = 5.33, SD 1.97, importance score = 4.34, SD 0.64).ConclusionThe rankings for priority and importance was not the same. Our results highlight a lack of applicable knowledge in the areas of professionalism and end of life. This study could be used as a foundation for developing further investigations by ensuring the most appropriate use of limited resources.Copyright © World Health Organization (WHO) 2020. Open Access. Some rights reserved. This work is available under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo).

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