Division of Pharmacy, School of Allied Health. Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, The University of Western Australia, M315, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia.
Division of Pharmacy, UniSA Clinical & Health Sciences, University of South, Australia; SA Pharmacy, SA Health, Adelaide, Australia.
Res Social Adm Pharm. 2021 Dec;17(12):2145-2150. doi: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2021.02.003. Epub 2021 Feb 6.
Focus group discussions typically involve face-to-face facilitation. There is growing interest in utilising digital technologies to facilitate aspects of focus group research. To date, no study in the pharmacy profession has comprehensively described and evaluated a fully virtual process to focus group research, from recruitment to reimbursement.
OBJECTIVE(S): This study aims to describe an entirely online approach to: recruiting for and facilitating virtual focus group discussions, and reimbursement of participants within the pharmacy profession. Specifically, our objectives were to identify 1) the dropout rate, 2) the geographic diversity of focus group participants, and 3) the occurrence of technological issues.
Traditional face-to-face focus group recruitment and facilitation methods were adapted, pre-tested, and conducted using online platforms for advertising, participant expressions of interest, participant consent, focus group facilitation, and participant reimbursement. Populations of interest included community pharmacists, specialty practice pharmacists, hospital pharmacists, and pharmacy assistants and technicians across Australia.
Of the 153 potential participants who either completed an expression of interest to participate (135/153) or agreed to participate after direct contact (18/153), 59 confirmed that they would attend the focus group discussion (39%); 49 of the 59 (dropout rate: 17%) participated in one of eight focus groups. Collectively, there was representation from all States and Territories in Australia, as well as representation in each of the populations of interest. Three of 49 participants (6%) experienced minor technological issues during the process; no participant encountered major technological issues that precluded successful participation.
Our study demonstrates that an entirely online approach to focus group methodology is possible, has the potential to recruit demographically and geographically-diverse participants with low dropout rates, and can be successfully conducted with minimal technological issues. Despite the recent COVID-19 pandemic making physical focus group facilitation untenable, this fully-online approach enables research to be completed uninterrupted.
焦点小组讨论通常需要面对面的协助。人们越来越感兴趣于利用数字技术来辅助焦点小组研究的各个方面。迄今为止，在药学专业中，尚无研究全面描述和评估从招募到报销的整个虚拟焦点小组研究过程。
本研究旨在描述一种完全在线的方法：在药学专业中招募和协助虚拟焦点小组讨论，并报销参与者的费用。具体而言，我们的目标是确定：1）流失率，2）焦点小组参与者的地域多样性，和 3）技术问题的发生情况。
传统的面对面焦点小组招募和协助方法经过改编、预测试，并使用在线平台进行广告宣传、参与者表达参与意向、参与者同意、焦点小组协助和参与者报销。感兴趣的人群包括社区药剂师、专业实践药剂师、医院药剂师以及澳大利亚各地的药剂助理和技术员。
在 153 名有兴趣完成意向表达（135/153）或直接联系后同意参与的潜在参与者中，有 59 人确认将参加焦点小组讨论（39%）；在这 59 人中，有 49 人（流失率：17%）参加了 8 个焦点小组中的一个。共有来自澳大利亚所有州和地区的代表，以及每个感兴趣人群的代表。在这 49 名参与者中，有 3 名（6%）在过程中遇到了轻微的技术问题；没有参与者遇到严重的技术问题，无法成功参与。
我们的研究表明，一种完全在线的焦点小组方法是可行的，具有招募具有低流失率的人口统计学和地域多样性参与者的潜力，并且可以在最小的技术问题下成功进行。尽管最近的 COVID-19 大流行使得物理焦点小组协助变得不可行，但这种完全在线的方法可以确保研究不间断地完成。
