Further time was budgeted for interviewers to attend in-person or telephone conference call interviewer group meetings, which were held on a regular basis to discuss problems experienced and strategies recommended by interviewers and the research team.
Interviewers were aware, from a regular interviewer group meeting, that one interviewer had left the project quite early on because of an ongoing and increasing frustration with POIS participants' forgetfulness.
During data collection, we monitored the interviewer-groups by regular telephone calls and location supervisors provided regular updates on progress.
Each began with an introduction by GR who presented the interviewer-group and clarified the focus of the study.
Furthermore, Spearman correlation was calculated with all interviewers grouped together for comparison with other studies that did not report whether they checked for interviewer bias.
The interviews were conducted by GR in the native tongue of the interviewees in both countries with simultaneous translation to the rest of the interviewer-group in Russia.
The different epidemiological studies differ depending on the interview technique used (face-to-face interview, telephone interview, questionnaire mailings), the questionnaires, and the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the interview, the profession of the interviewer, the interviewed age groups, and the representativeness of the interviewed group for the general population.
Ethical approval was gained from the University of Otago for the interviewer focus group.
The overarching finding arising from the interactions between the interviewer focus group was the sense of interviewer respect for study participants within the interview.
In the interviewer-administered group, behaviour was coded during the interview.
Ethnicity was reported to interviewers and grouped into White/Black/Asian/Mixed and 'Chinese or other' ethnicities.
