4.5. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP)

To determine the relative importance of each indicator, we employed the AHP methodology to establish a consensus on the relative weights assigned to each indicator. The AHP is a decision‐making methodology developed by Saaty in the 1970s (Saaty, 1994). At its core, the AHP provides a structured approach to decision‐making by breaking down a complex problem into a hierarchy of criteria and alternatives. The hierarchy consists of a goal, criteria, sub‐criteria, and alternatives. The goal represents the overarching objective or problem that needs to be addressed. Criteria are the different factors or dimensions that contribute to achieving the goal, and sub‐criteria represent the sub‐factors within each criterion. Alternatives refer to the various options or solutions available for consideration.

Our research takes the nursing quality evaluation index of clinical drug trial as the target layer (goal), the first‐level index and the second‐level index as the criterion layer (criteria, sub‐criteria), and the third‐level index as the scheme layer (alternatives), forming a hierarchical structure model. According to the hierarchical structure, the indicators in each level are compared in pairs. The Satty scale method is used to express the relative importance and to construct the judgement matrix. The established hierarchical structure model and the constructed judgement matrix were input into the yaahp 10.3 software to determine the weights and combination weights of each indicator.