Recruitment, interview procedure and data collection

Recruitment, interview procedure and data collection

The study protocol was approved by the research committee
in Beijing Cancer Hospital and by institutional authorities
in Bai Cao TCM clinic (the chief physician and chief
administrator). Two TCM physicians involved in the professional
group organized the patients’ group meeting and
also attended those meetings. Patients were invited by
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Table 1.
Interview guide
For patient and family members group
Why and when did you seek TCM?
What did you expect of TCM?
What type of TCM therapy did you seek and receive?
What are strengthens and weaknesses (what do you like and
dislike) regarding TCM therapy?
What was the cost of using TCM?
How important is TCM to you?
Are there any barriers or facilitators for you to seek/receive
TCM therapy?
Would you recommend TCM therapy to other cancer patients?
What do you see as being the future of TCM?
For TCM professional group
What is the place of TCM in cancer care (complementary,
alternative) in China?
Under what situations will patients seek TCM therapy?
What type of TCM therapies you propose? The frequency of
their use?
Potential benefits and risks to patients, or advantage and
disadvantage of using TCM?
Are there any barriers or facilitators to the use of TCM therapy?
What do you see being the trend of use, and barriers to its
development?
Potential collaboration on clinical research?
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their physicians to participate. We provided the physicians
who are responsible for the recruitment with written
information about the study, including a list of the
interview questions (Table 1) and the informed consent
form. Because of the qualitative nature of the study and
the absence of intervention and follow-up, written consent
was not required by the participating institutions.
Oral informed consent was obtained from all participants
before the group meeting. At the beginning of the group
discussion, the investigators explained clearly the study
objective and the questions to be discussed. All participants
were offered opportunities to withdraw from the
discussion at any time.
The semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted
within 1 week of each other, each lasting 1.5–2 h.
The list of open-ended questions (Table 1) was presented
to the participants. The discussion, however, was not
restricted to these questions and participants were asked
to talk freely about their experiences and perspectives on
TCM. All focus group discussions were facilitated and
tape-recorded by the main author (W. Xu). Detailed field
notes were also taken to record contexts of the discussions
and to describe the clinical settings where TCM is administered.
A senior research investigator from McGill University
(J.P. Collet) was present at focus groups as an
observer. To ensure confidentiality, all documents were
stored in such a way that the participant’s personal information
was anonymous and the data were only available
to the research team.