Table 6.

Examples of Pan and Fond survey errors identified in pretesting data

Error	Examples
Inappropriate linguistic conventions or terminology	─ ‘condomless sex’ ─ ‘vaccination’ ─ ‘treatments’ / ‘cure’ ─ ‘another gender’ ─ ‘undetectable (very low) amounts of virus’ ─ ‘in exchange for sex’
Failing to adhere to cultural norms	─ Impolite to ask age in some cultures ─ Reference to ‘anal sex’ considered problematic by some respondents
Invoking concepts that do not reflect the social practices of the target audience	─ The scenario-based question in which participants were asked to ‘imagine that next week you visit a general practitioner because you are feeling a bit unwell’ was not considered to be realistic; participants would only visit a doctor for serious illnesses ─ The term ‘medicine’ could be interpreted by participants as allopathic medicine and/or traditional/herbal medicine