Table 5.

Categories relating to outcome acceptability and illustrative quotes

Perceptions of outcome assessments	‘It was a bit of a task, too many (outcomes) personally’. (Male, mildly frail) ‘It’s really helpful if it’s (outcome assessment) done here whilst I am on dialysis. We have got all this free time. Sometimes its five medical appointments a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays (non-dialysis days) become quite precious to me’. (Male, vulnerable) ‘The walking ones (tests) I could make the distance, but the time was ridiculous, they asked me to do it fast. I can't, I have only got one speed’. (Male, vulnerable) ‘I am not very good at scores, or you know, what they say about pain, what number it is? I am no good at that. I don't know what it means. I know it really hurts but I just can't describe the extent of it. It’s difficult to put it in a number like that’. (Female, vulnerable) ‘Like all form filling, you can be undecided as to what or how to answer them. Sometimes you don’t, you kind of guess what you should be saying’. (Male, mildly frail)
Important outcomes	Maintaining mobility ‘If you are walking better you are not getting out of breath and that’s what does me. I mean I can't walk down this corridor to the ambulance because I am having to stop and get my breath back’. (Female, moderately frail)
	Maintaining activities of daily living and social roles ‘I don't want to walk miles I just want to do enough to get around…from my chair to my commode or from my commode onto the bed. The only way I can do that is with the rotunda at the minute. I would like to do it with my walking frame’. (Female, moderately frail) ‘I just want to carry on living and enjoying my life with (my partner) and children, my sisters, and of course all my friends, the church involvement, because I want to enjoy that for absolutely as long as I can’. (Male, mildly frail)
	Falls and falls diaries ‘I don’t fall on a weekly basis… falling over is not something that happens on any sort of regular basis’. (Male, moderately frail) ‘When I was at the hospital, I told them I had a fall. They don't want to know. They said, “You are perfect, your levels (bloods) are perfect and everything”’. (Male, vulnerable) ‘You know I sometimes I forget (to write in the diary). So, the first days I had written and then I forgot it. And when you forget it then you can’t get the information right’. (Male, severely frail) ‘I can’t hold a pen properly, so I am not able to write. (Because of) arthritis they said, because I have got neuropathy and because I am on dialysis phosphate is causing my fingers to sometimes…close up’. (Male, moderately frail) ‘If (the researcher is) opposite you and gives you the information,(they’re) going to explain it even better, you know (they) can even ask (the participant) what happened and then they explain to (the researcher) different. But you forget you know the diary it’s very difficult and some of (the participants) won’t ever to know how to use it’. (Male, mildly frail)