As a consequence of follow-up interviews with the same participants, interviewers had the opportunity to observe the trajectory of peoples' injury recovery (or not) over time.
The Prospective Outcomes of Injury Study, through which the study participants (interviewers) were employed during the interviewing work they describe in this paper, is funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand (2007-2013) and was funded by the Accident Compensation Corporation (2007-2010).
We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the study participants, interviewers and field workers, and the staff of the U.S. Naval Medical Center Research Detachment Bacteriology Laboratory in Lima, Peru.
Participants, interviewers, and study coordinators were blinded to brand names and ingredients in all products.
When approaching potential participants, interviewers verbally checked that all three inclusion criteria for the study (listed above) were met before proceeding with recruitment of participants.
The authors would like to acknowledge Dr. Rebecca Calderon (deceased) for her inspiration, dedication and vision; Westat, Inc. especially Karen Della Torre and Kurt Patrizi; and all field study staff, participants, interviewers, and water sample collectors.
Participants attended either a face-to-face semi-structured interview (1 participant:1 interviewer) or focus group (3-4 participants:1 interviewer) within 2 weeks of completing the PEAK program.
Each interview consisted of a participant, an interviewer, and a note taker.
None of the parent trial participants who were approached refused an in-depth interview; however some interviews could not be scheduled due to participant or interviewer availability.
Two of the authors (CST and GCD) shared the task of conducting the interviews based on a random assignment of participant to interviewer.
Interviews were held at a place that was mutually acceptable to participant and interviewer and were digitally recorded for subsequent verbatim transcription.
