| Pleased to be asked |
Taking an interest |
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•
Pharmacists enjoyed being part of the study because it utilised their broader skill set.
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•
Pharmacists appreciated recognition of their wider ability to contribute to primary health care delivery.
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•
Pharmacists found it meaningful to educate rather than sell products or fill prescriptions.
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•
Pharmacists perceived that participants seemed happy to be given any information about OA but that not all customers were willing to engage.
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•
Participants like being offered something to help with knee pain.
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•
Participants took part because they wanted to contribute to the study; the $20 voucher incentive was appreciated but not the driver.
|
| Build relationships |
|
| Easy process |
Simple to follow |
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•
Pharmacists' felt that the training prepared them well. They found screening, recruitment and data checking processes simple to implement and documentation easy to manage. Pharmacists suggested prompts for talking to participants and ways in which recruitment processes could be further clarified.
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•
Participants found recruitment booklet (screening questions, study information and consent, and baseline questionnaire) layout and questions easy to follow; 4-week follow-up survey layout was easy because it felt familiar.
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| Acceptable time commitment |
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•
Pharmacists said it was usually easy to fit the time it took to explain and screen participants into their workload. They suggested payment for this time would improve sustainability.
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•
Pharmacists usually explained the process and left participants to complete questions, asking participants to wait until they were free when needed. Pharmacists rarely needed to answer questions.
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•
Pharmacists occasionally required additional time to follow-up people who expressed interest but took the recruitment booklet home to complete.
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•
Participants thought that the time requirement was good (not too little, not too much). A few took recruitment booklet away to allow more time to complete.
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| Successful process |
Recruitment |
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•
Recruitment was predominantly driven by signage, and sometimes by shop staff mentioning the study to customers who were purchasing over-the-counter products (such as knee braces or pain relief gel) or pharmacists mentioning the study to customers who were filling prescriptions.
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•
Recruitment targets were achieved by most pharmacies, with pharmacists noting that school holidays and COVID-19 alert levels affected weekly rates.
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•
Recruitment required pharmacist time, as it was better when the pharmacist was actively involved in the process.
|
| Randomisation |
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•
Pharmacists found randomisation processes easy to follow. All said they did not try to guess allocation because they knew the importance of fidelity.
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•
Participants said they did not try to guess which group they were in, some because they were asked not to and many because they did not realise/remember there were two groups.
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| Blinding |
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•
Pharmacists told participants to open envelopes outside of the pharmacy and not tell them the contents. Participants adhered to this.
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•
Participants said they adhered to the blinding process because they were asked to. Most did not discuss the information because they do not generally talk about their OA with others.
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•
Two participants recruited from the same household reported discussing their OA information with each other [contamination did not occur as they were both randomised to the same arm].
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| Occasional challenges |
Discomfort |
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| Competition |
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