Background

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.

Method

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.

Results

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.

Conclusions

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.

中文翻译：

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让我们谈谈虚拟！现代研究人员的在线焦点小组促进

背景

焦点小组讨论通常涉及面对面的协助。人们对利用数字技术促进焦点小组研究的各个方面越来越感兴趣。迄今为止，还没有药学专业的研究全面描述和评估焦点小组研究的完全虚拟过程，从招聘到报销。

目标：本研究旨在描述一种完全在线的方法：招募和促进虚拟焦点小组讨论，以及药学专业参与者的报销。具体来说，我们的目标是确定 1) 辍学率，2) 焦点小组参与者的地域多样性，以及 3) 技术问题的发生。

方法

传统的面对面焦点小组招募和促进方法被改编、预先测试并使用在线平台进行广告、参与者表达兴趣、参与者同意、焦点小组促进和参与者报销。感兴趣的人群包括澳大利亚各地的社区药剂师、专业执业药剂师、医院药剂师以及药房助理和技术人员。

结果

在 153 名完成了参与意向表达 (135/153) 或在直接联系后同意参与 (18/153) 的潜在参与者中，59 名确认他们将参加焦点小组讨论 (39%)；59 人中有 49 人（辍学率：17%）参加了八个焦点小组之一。总的来说，澳大利亚所有州和领地都有代表，每个感兴趣的人群都有代表。49 名参与者中有 3 名 (6%) 在此过程中遇到了轻微的技术问题；没有参与者遇到妨碍成功参与的重大技术问题。

结论

我们的研究表明，焦点小组方法的完全在线方法是可能的，有可能以低辍学率招募人口统计学和地域多样化的参与者，并且可以在最少的技术问题下成功实施。尽管最近的 COVID-19 大流行使实体焦点小组的便利站不住脚，但这种完全在线的方法使研究能够不间断地完成。