Table 1.
Compilation of exit interview questions and example participant responses.
| Questions | Participant Responses* |
|---|---|
| 1. In your own words, what would you say was the purpose of the group? | The group helped me and motivated us to think ahead of time, as opposed to just saying, ‘OK, I woke up this morning. Now what?’ We went further into our thought pattern and said, ‘Hey, let’s plan for the next day.’ And it [the group] not only talked about your physical, but about your mental health, and accomplishments—what you want to do, and some life stressors. [We talked about] things you can do to take the stress off, and how to remember to take your medication. |
| 2. Tell me something that you feel you will take away from the group. | I learned to be specific with what I plan. Even if I don’t do it, I have something planned each day. Positive things. |
| 3. What were some goals that you set for yourself? What was your progress with those goals? | One thing I did was to go to bed later. I was going to bed too early and waking up in the middle of the night. That [change] has worked out great. I’m sleeping my eight hours and feel good in the morning. It also helped with my morning meds. |
| 4. What, if anything, made it difficult to bring the homework forms back to group? | Because during the week you get caught up in your day, your family activities, and you forget. Maybe it’s my medication … it’s easy to forget those types of things and papers. For me, I don’t like to do a lot of homework. It wasn’t fun. |
| 5. What changes would make it easier to bring the goal forms back with you? | Leave homework forms somewhere you are each day and can fill them out on a daily basis. The same place every day so it doesn’t get lost. Or, instead of doing logs, we could use stickies that you put on your refrigerator, and make the stickies colorful, too, so that they stand out. |
| 6. Did you learn anything from the other group members? | They gave me ideas for my goals, like how to find a good case manager, and I got tips on how to make transportation to appointments easier. |
| 7. What was the most helpful part of the group for you? | Probably I would say the [positive and negative] cycles. I still want to see if I can do them by myself. And talking about appointments and taking meds. |
| 8. What was the least helpful part of the group for you? | The homework forms because they were hard to remember. |
| 9. If you missed a week of the group, did you feel lost or behind when you came the next time? | We never got behind because there was always review. The other group members helped a lot, too. A few people really took the lead when they could be there the past couple weeks. |
| 10. Would you recommend this group to other patients like you? Why or why not? | Yes, I’d really recommend it to someone who just got diagnosed, to learn about taking your medications. I wanted to get undetectable with my viral load and I accomplished that. |
| 11. What would you change about the group? | Sometimes I don’t want to hear no more about this medicine! Most of us learned the hard way not to miss our meds. I think focusing on other medical stuff more besides taking meds. |
Note.
*
A single participant’s response was included for each question. The feedback received in the exit interviews was quite uniform; we provided a single answer for each response to avoid redundancy.