Table 4.
Interview questions for recruiters
| Examples of questions included in the recruiter interview | |
| - When did recruitment start at your site and how has it been so far? | |
| Recruitment pathway | |
| - Could you talk me through the usual patient pathway for your site? (e.g. how are patients referred to your site? Identifying eligible patients? Who first introduces the MACRO trial to patients and how do they do this? Who assesses the patient for eligibility? | |
| Introducing/explaining the trial. | |
| - Please could you tell me how you introduce and explain the trial to patients? | |
| - How do you explain to patients what will be involved? | |
| - How do you explain the three different treatment arms? What order? | |
| - Placebo? | |
| - What sort of questions have patients asked so far and how do you respond? | |
| Randomisation | |
| - How do you explain to patients how their treatment will be decided? | |
| - How easy do you think is it for patients to understand the concept of randomisation? | |
| - Have you had any doubts about whether a patient really understands randomisation? | |
| Uncertainty | |
| The rationale for the study is that we don’t know what the best treatment is for CRS. | |
| - How have you found that patients react to the idea that medical science does not know what the best treatment is? How do you respond to this? How does the uncertainty make you feel as a clinician? | |
| - Have any patients expressed a preference for a particular treatment? Which and why? | |
| - Can you talk me though how you respond if a patient expresses a preference? | |
| - Do you ever have a feeling during an appointment that a patient should really have one treatment rather than another? How do you handle that? | |
| Reasons for declining participation in the MACRO trial. | |
| - What reasons have patients given for not wanting to take part? | |
| - How do you respond to patients not wanting to take part? | |
| - What do you see as the main difficulties patients have with the trial? | |
| Learning and training | |
| - Have there been any particular learning points so far? | |
| - What advice would you give to new sites about what might enhance recruitment to the MACRO trial? | |
| Could you describe any additional training or information which might help your team with recruitment at your site? |