Table 4.

Sample study content areas and sample questions/probes for index participants

Content area	Sample questions and probes
Community involvement and relationships with caregivers	I am interested in hearing what is going on in your life right now. How do you occupy your time?(probes for school enrollment/completion status, employment status)
	Who do you live with? (probes for history of living arrangements, nature of relationships with guardians, number of people in the home)
Relationships (general)	What are your most important relationships? (probes for defining what makes a relationship important and nature of the relationships)
	Who else do you spend time with?
Relationships (sexual)	Please tell me about your relationship with the baby’s father
	Do you have any other partners right now? Tell me about those relationships (probes for length of relationship, how serious the relationship is/defining serious intimate relationships, sexual behavior within the relationship)
HIV: impact, attitudes and risk behaviors	Please tell me about the ways in which HIV has affected your life (probes for HIV-related loss, financial impact, exposure to trauma, impact on ability to form relationships with others)
	Sometimes very big problems such as HIV can feel overwhelming. Sometimes when people feel overwhelmed, they give up trying to solve a problem…other people may feel more hopeful about HIV because of new research and availability of medicine to treat HIV. How do you feel? (probes for knowledge of biomedical prevention efforts)
	How do you think HIV will affect your future?
	Tell me about the things that impact your sexual behavior or decisions around having sex (probes for partner factors and substance use)
	What do/did you do in your life/relationships to protect yourself from HIV?
	We’ve talked about some HIV prevention strategies… how possible is it for you to do these things in your own life?
Content of potential intervention	What, if anything, could have/could help you stay HIV negative?
	Who else (besides young women) need to be involved in an HIV prevention program for young women?
	Other than HIV, what are the big problems facing young girls like yourself in Umlazi?
	There are many strategies that healthcare providers could use to help young women stay HIV negative… what approach do you think would be most effective?