Table 3 Patient topic guide

Background & circumstance

 • Tell me a little about your background? Prompt: work and lifestyle etc.

 • Explore health status, medical conditions and current concerns about health

Use of health services & medicine use

 • Explore experiences of patients health care services

• Do you have any concerns or problems with the medicines currently prescribed?

 • Explore adherence i.e. are medicine taken as prescribed or have these been changed?

 • Do you ever miss doses of your medicine, if so when / why?

 • Explore understanding of what medicines are for, concerns about side effects, perceptions of effectiveness, reluctance to take etc

Relationship with pharmacy/pharmacist

 • How often do you make use of your local pharmacy and what are the reasons you use this?

 • What has your experience with pharmacies & their staff been (friendly, unfriendly, informative, discriminative etc.)?

 • Have you ever been offered a pharmacy consultation when you visit pharmacies? And what was your experience?

 • What sort of support are you aware of being available from your pharmacist? Can you recall any specific advice given by the pharmacist?

 • Have you ever asked a pharmacist for advice about your medicines (details)? Do you think the pharmacist is someone that you could approach for advice about your medicines? What prevents you from asking at the pharmacy?

 • If you have problems with your medication what if anything do you intend to do about it? What would you like to do?

 • How would you feel about being approached about using one or more of these additional services?

Specific questions relating to their marginalised or under-served status

 • Explore self-identification / belonging to a medically under-served group

 • Explore communication / cultural challenges (people who have English as second language or from BAME community)

 • Can you describe the difficulties that your disability has in accessing or being offered community pharmacy services? (People with disability)

 • How do you think medicines services like the MUR can be better tailored to others in the same circumstances as you?

Questions about their experience of the MUR

 • Explore awareness of the MUR and expectation of the service?

 • What did you think about the environment i.e. the size of the counselling room?

 • Can you describe how you felt during the consultation? (Prompt – friendly, comfortable, nervous?)

 • Explore patient’s perceived purpose of the MUR: What do you think the purpose of this service was?

 • What did you find most helpful & what did you find least helpful?

 • In what ways, if any, has the MUR helped you with your medicines? Have you changed the way you take your medicine according to this advice?

 • Are there any outstanding problems with your new medicine or any other medicine that you would like to have discussed with the pharmacist during the consultation?

 • Do you think the MUR was necessary for you?

 • Would you recommend this service to others?

 • Would you like to see any improvement in the way MURs are carried out?

 • Any final comments / thank the patient.