Table 2.

Focus group discussion and semistructured interview schedule

Focus group discussion questions	Semistructured interview questions
1. Can you share what you understand about what happens to women’s periods as they get older?	1. What do you understand by the word menopause?
2. What happens to women’s health as their periods begin to stop?	2. Could you share any experiences you have of the menopause either personally or from other people?
3. What do you understand by the word menopause?	3. If perimenopausal or postmenopausal: How has life changed since the menopause (if at all)? How have you managed through this phase of life? How prepared did you feel for this phase of life? How do you think your experience of the menopause might be different from a woman without HIV? What is it like managing HIV through this phase of life?
4. Pile-sorting exercise: menopausal symptoms.	4. If premenopausal: What do you expect to happen to you during the menopause? How do you think life might change during this phase of life (if at all)? How prepared do you feel for this phase of life? How do you think experiences of the menopause might be different from a woman without HIV? How are you managing with HIV at the moment?
5. Could you share any experiences you have of the menopause either personally or things you have heard from other people?	5. All women: What could be done to help women during the menopause? Do women living with HIV need specific help, and if so what? Where do you think women living with HIV would like to go for help?
6. If you had physical or emotional symptoms around this time, what could you do about it?
7. Do you think the menopause and HIV affect each other?
8. As you know we are doing some research on women living with HIV as they go through the menopause (when their periods stop as they older). What kind of things do you think we should be looking at?