Table 2.

Examples of questions asked during interviews

Question number	Question
1.	Please tell me all about your rotator cuff tear/shoulder? (follow up questions to find out when and and how the tear happened and obtain narrative history from participant).
2.	Please tell me about how your shoulder tear affected/affects you? (follow up questions to explore impact upon activities of daily living, work, leisure, relationships, emotional impact, and to explore symptoms).
3.	Are you right or left handed? (follow up to explore dominance, unilateral or bilateral shoulder problems, “how is your other shoulder?”).
4.	Please tell me anything else you’d like to tell me about your shoulder and how the tear had affected you?

Prompts were used to encourage conversational flow e.g. how did you feel about that? What happened then? Participants were able to introduce any new topics or issues into the interviews at any time and asked for any additional comments.