In the course of more than three year's data collection for POIS (recruitment of POIS participants commenced in December 2007 and final 24-month interviews were on-going in 2011, at the time of the focus group), other interviewers had been involved in the project but had ceased interviewing a year, or more, before the focus group.
[Update 10 30pm pacific: Refdash has just published a blog post confirming our report, and indicating it will cease conducting interviews with clients as "we have decided to take on a new opportunity and become a part of a larger, fast-growing team".
A distress protocol will be used, with participants being offered the opportunity to cease the interview if they become distressed during questioning.
She had more or less ceased giving interviews by 1964, and stuck to a quiet pattern of spending part of the year in New York and part in Alabama, where even now her ninety-four-year-old sister Alice acts as gatekeeper.
Use of a method involving spoken communication helped to ensure that this information was brought to the attention of all interviewees, and allowed for the option of ceasing an interview sensitively if a subject became distressed.
Following established qualitative research methods, sample size is estimated at what will achieve saturation (ie, when new interviews cease to provide fresh information).
Any person who presents severe psychological distress during the baseline interview will be referred to clinical staff and the interview will cease.
In a nutshell, for the whole interview never cease to be ENTHUSIASTIC (you're relaxed, so smile a little), ATTENTIVE (you are alert, maintaining good eye-contact and nodding a fair bit), and POSITIVE (give forward-looking answers).
If patients report being a non or ex-smoker, they will be thanked for their time, and the interview will cease.
By interview 11, there was a high level of redundancy of themes and interviewing ceased.
