Objective: In this paper, the readers are introduced to ELICIT, an imprecise weight elicitation technique for multicriteria decision analysis for healthcare.
Methods: The application of ELICIT consists of two steps: the rank ordering of evaluation criteria based on decision-makers' (DMs) preferences using the principal component analysis; and the estimation of criteria weights and their descriptive statistics using the variable interdependent analysis and the Monte Carlo method. The application of ELICIT is illustrated with a hypothetical case study involving the elicitation of weights for five criteria used to select the best device for eye surgery.
Results: The criteria were ranked from 1-5, based on a strict preference relationship established by the DMs. For each criterion, the deterministic weight was estimated as well as the standard deviation and 95% credibility interval.
Conclusions: ELICIT is appropriate in situations where only ordinal DMs' preferences are available to elicit decision criteria weights.
Keywords: Monte Carlo method; healthcare; imprecise eight elicitation; multi-criteria decision analysis; principal component analysis; variable interdependent analysis.