Focus Group Discussion Guide

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Focus Group Guide: PDO/Naloxone Advisory Council or Cross Site Grantee Staff

Hello, this is _______________ with Battelle. Thank you for agreeing to participate in today’s focus group. Battelle is a research organization and we are working with CDC and SAMHSA to conduct an evaluation of the SAMHSA-funded grants to Prevent Prescription Drug/Opioid Overdose-Related Deaths, or the PDO/Naloxone grant. The evaluation is intended to help understand the scope and impact of the program on overdose fatalities, increase our understanding of program effectiveness, and increase understanding of barriers and facilitators to program implementation. You have been asked to participate in a focus group because you serve on a grant advisory council. We are interested in learning about your perspective and experiences with the PDO/naloxone grant.

If you agree to participate in the focus group, we will ask you a series of questions related to the PDO/naloxone activities that are occurring in your jurisdiction. This will take about 1 ½ hours of your time. Your participation is completely voluntary. You can decide whether or not to participate. If you do agree to participate, you may stop at any time. You may also choose to not answer any questions. Should you choose to participate, your answers will be maintained in a secure manner and you will not be identified by name or description in any reports.

Does anyone have any questions for me at this point?

Are you willing to participate in the focus group?

We would also like to audio tape the focus group for transcribing purposes only. You will not be identified by name or description in any of the audio recordings. Once the focus group has been transcribed, the audio will be erased.

Are you willing to have the focus group audio taped?

[Begin recording]

Introductions

Let’s start with some introductions. I know you all have been working together so have probably gotten to know each other well. But if you don’t mind filling me in on a few things. Please introduce yourself and tell me:

• What is your role on the PDO/Naloxone grant?

• What is your “day job”?

• If your advisory council has regular meetings, what is the best part of these council meetings?

Council Formation (1^st Year Interviews Only)

Let’s think about when this grant first started. I’m interested in learning more about how the advisory council formed.

1. Please tell us about how you came to be involved in the advisory council?

2. What do you see as the advisory council’s primary role?

3. What are some of the challenges associated with advisory council?

Follow up: How were those challenges addressed?

4. Do you think you now have the people that you need around the table? Is there anyone missing or any roles not represented that you think should be?

Infrastructure

5. How have partnerships and collaborations been developed in your community to address education and distribution of naloxone?

(Probe: Have there been any changes to how funding streams are coordinated? Are there new collaborations as a result of this work?)

6. How has the grant been used to establish any new tracking or monitoring systems? How were these systems developed? How are they benefiting the community?

Implementation

For most grantee states, implementing the PDO/Naloxone grant has included education activities about naloxone to various audiences as well as distribution of naloxone.

Education

7. Please describe the education components of the implementation effort.

8. What has been successful in terms of implementing the education related activities?

9. Do you think you have reached the desired target audiences with the information? Why/why not?

(Probe: What audiences have not been reached that should be? What has acted as a barrier to reaching these audiences?)

10. What challenges have been encountered with the implementation of the education activities? How were these challenges addressed?

Distribution

11. Please describe the naloxone distribution activities of the implementation effort.

12. What approaches have been successful in terms of increasing distribution of naloxone in your community?

13. Do you think you have reached the desired target audiences with the distribution effort? Why/why not?

(Probe: What audiences have not been reached that should be? What has acted as a barrier to reaching these audiences?)

14. What challenges have been encountered with the implementation of the education activities? How were those challenges addressed?

Disparities

15. What has been done in your community to address access to naloxone among disparate population?

(Probe: What audiences are these? What was successful? What were the challenges? Are there audiences that you have been unable to reach and why?)

Sustainability

16. Do you think the changes that have been created in your community, or the infrastructure that was developed as a result of this grant, can be sustained after the funding? How will changes be sustained?

17. What impact does state or local support for naloxone have on access and availability of naloxone in your community?

(Probe: What impact does state/local policies/laws have? Which particular state/local policies or laws impact this? Has this group or other grantee partners influenced state or local policy in support of the grant goals and how?)

Conclusion

18. Have you seen any changes in views or support for naloxone use or distribution in the community? Please describe this.

19. How can future efforts to address naloxone distribution be improved?

20. Is there anything else you think is important to this evaluation that you’d like to share?

Thank you so much for your time today. Your input will help us better understand how the PDO/naloxone grant funding is being used in your community. What we learn from this will help other communities in the future as well. So, again, thank you.