Please insert Table 1 about here
The main drawback of using a lot of factors is that all groups of factors and all factors do not have equal impact on the problem under consideration. The effect of certain factors has a more significant impact on surgeons’ activities. That is the reason for the application of the group and factor ranking method, and the involvement of more experts in decision-making.
It is recommended to use the multi-criteria analysis method to determine the key factors of a complex problem. Based on the method presented in the aforementioned research,35 for simpler understanding of the decision-making process and more accurate ranking results, the following factors are used: fuzzy numbers, analytic hierarchy process, and group decision-making.
The applied group fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) consists of the following steps: (1) identifying the experts and assigning significance describing their influence on the final decision based on the level of experience; (2) creation of hierarchical structure of factors and groups of factors; (3) pairwise comparison groups and individual factors based on the proposed hierarchical structure using fuzzy numbers; (4) determining the aggregate patterns based on the comparison of individual experts and their roles describing their influence on the final decision; (5) determining fuzzy significance for groups of factors and individual factors based on the obtained aggregate fuzzy patterns; (6) defuzzification (determination of crisp numbers based on fuzzy numbers), and ranking based on the obtained results.
Ranking determines the significance of individual factors and groups of factors for the purpose of using them in further analyses.