Table 3. Focus group findings.

Theme	Data extract (I = interviewer; P = participant)
Acceptability	P2: It's not, "do you ever use the Internet," they're [questions] just sort of feeding in…and just sort of building into that question.
	I: So, you would sort of gradually…
	P1: Depends on the client and how the interview's going and you just sort of ask the question at the appropriate point.
	P4: … the way I ask is whether…people have used the Internet to look up, you know, means of support, positive resources so I ask them, you know, I asked it both ways whether she'd [reference to patient seen previous week] used the Internet to either look for help or as a way of thinking about working out how she might try to end her life.
	I: Overall do you feel comfortable asking the question?
	P4: Yes.
	P3: It's no more uncomfortable than any of the other questions we ask.
Risk	P3: Sometimes when I asked the question I sort of warn people against, um, you know, looking too deeply on the Internet because there are sites that are actively encouraging people to kill themselves… and I think if people start looking they're more likely to come across these things, but at the same time I'm saying you can get help online and get support and advice, you know, peer support… I think it's in my mind that if you're asking the question you could be alerting somebody to another possibility they hadn't considered.
Clinical usefulness Supporting decision-making	P4: I can't think of an example where [knowing about a patient's Internet use] really made me change my impression or management plan… maybe if there was a degree of planning where they'd actually gone on the Internet and researched it in detail, that kind of adds an element to the nature and degree of how much it was planned…
	P1: Yeah, I agree with that actually, just thinking about – that's another thing on the list of many things that will worry me… just lends to that kind of decision I suppose.
	P2: Again it's adding, looking at the risk, it adds to that maybe, adds to the knowledge of the person.
Benefits of probing	P1: [referring to case vignette] It strikes me actually the detail of [online] research… I guess I haven't necessarily explored – like today, I haven't asked her [patient just seen] many questions about how much she is looking at the Internet… but actually when you look at how much – I would be just more concerned, I suppose….
	P3: … Yeah, makes me think maybe I need to explore it a little bit more…
	P4: Yeah, and maybe probe it a bit more isn't it, like you say, there is a lot of info there which I probably wouldn't have weaned out of them.
	I: How would that probing help?
	P4: Well I guess it would help formulate your risk assessment… for someone like this [case vignette], if we had all the right information as part of that risk assessment it would probably, you know, certainly ring a few alarm bells.
Informing treatment plans	P6: It helps you when you come to do your plan about what might be helpful, knowing what might be available to them, different ways different people learn or access information.
Barriers Scope of psychosocial assessment	P8: Given that we only have an hour or two to assess someone and that's crammed with lots of other domains… I wouldn't want to sacrifice the detailed discussion about mental state for a more in-depth discussion of Internet use. I mean if you were working with someone over a longer period of time and you thought there was something about their history of their use of the Internet had evolved in a way, healthily or unhealthily, that seems like something you might explore with someone but in a one-off assessment, I think that's pushing it…
Knowledge	I: We've found people going on [name of popular non-suicide information site] to look up methods and how to use methods of suicide.
	P6: Really? On [name of site]? ….
	I:…. In fact one of you mentioned [name of popular medical site] and recommending this to patients but we've interviewed people who have looked on there for information on how to do it [suicide]
	P6: Really? That's new to me.