Table 3 Quotes from Qualitative Interviews and Focus Groups

  ACCESS Study staff

“[ACCESS Study staff] called me and then you sent information, pamphlets and this kind of things and then we displayed on the counters.” (Pharmacist 15)

  Colleagues

“A colleague [pharmacist] told me about [the ACCESS Study].” (Pharmacist 14)

  Corporate managers

“Somebody from the ACCESS study had reached out to one of the district managers of Rexall and they sent an email out to every single store that we might be getting a package.” (Pharmacist 17)

  Patients/Participants

“Some of our patients told us they are enrolled into [the ACCESS Study] and their medications are going to be basically 100% covered, that’s when I first heard about it.” (Pharmacist 10)

  Understanding of the study

“I don’t know very much about [the education program] at all, not many patients have spoken to us about it”. (Pharmacist 10)

“I didn’t know that was an intervention. I thought [the education] was available to all patients in the study.” (Pharmacist 18)

  Lack of patient follow-through

“I do provide information, but unfortunately I never follow up with it, if they filled out a form and send it or not because I know from statistical data a lot of people who do see things they don’t follow-up on it” (Pharmacist 17)

  Staff engagement

“if the [pharmacy staff member] just giving [the patient] flyers is not even engaged enough to know like the intricate details about the things you are telling me about” (Pharmacist 7)

  Lack of time

“I feel so limited because of how tight my days are and I’m also an associate owner of the [pharmacy name], so like between being a pharmacist and then all the managerial admin stuff it’s almost impossible to do anything” (Pharmacist 7)

  Displaying of materials

“Posters around here have short life. They get leaned on, bumped, torn, shop-worn. We don’t really have a good area for posters, so as I say, they are on the counter they get ripped, torn and dirty.”

(Pharmacist 20)

  Benefit to patients

“I thought it was a great idea, especially since we have a high demographic of seniors out here, and often hear complaints about costs of medication” (Pharmacist 1)

  Scientific merit

“I certainly appreciate the efforts of the people that are doing research. I’m not one myself, to be up for doing that, so I’m always happy to help … I think it’s really important to continue coming up with data as far as what is affecting patients, and what pharmacies can do to help” (Pharmacist 13)

  Ease of participation

“I just thought it sounded like it would be really easy for me. A really easy way for me to engage in research … I feel so limited because of how tight my days are, but my initial thoughts when I heard about [ACCESS] was that sounds like a convenient way for me to [get involved]” (Pharmacist 7)

  Blanket strategies

“I have handed [brochures] like crazy to every single person who is about 65” (Pharmacist 17)

“Any senior that comes in to fill that does meet the criteria, we would talk to them about the study” (Pharmacist 19)

  Targeted strategies

Those with financial barriers: “Some patients have a lot of issues with finance part of things, so that’s how we tailor to check what patient needs something” (Pharmacist 10)

Those needing education: “[W] e tried to promote [ACCESS], it might help you both ways, education plus additional coverage as well” (Pharmacist 15)

Those with chronic conditions: “if [a] senior had chronic conditions we promoted that, ‘you can try this [study], it might help you both ways, education plus it might help you with additional coverage as well’. (Pharmacist 15)

Those with poor compliance: “Maybe they are struggling with filling prescription, they are not that compliant … those are the patients we are targeting most of the time” (Pharmacist 3)

  Self-directed strategies

Radio advertisements: “we ran radio ads here and tried to attract as many people as we could for you” (Pharmacist 20)

Print & social media advertisements: “I had it in the newspaper and then we went online with it as well too, Facebook and our other two Facebook pages that we have” (Pharmacist 20)

Community events: “I have presented at senior events and I have just spoken to people and handed out them the pamphlet” (Pharmacist 4)

  Understanding of the study

“I really don’t like the computer. I’m not a fan. Talking to somebody [on the phone] you can ask questions. If you are on a website, you kind of have to bumble around and try to figure it out” (Patient 2)

  Language

“Because we have so many in Calgary “I think language barrier, because sometimes patients are intimidated for having to fill out forms or speaking to someone on the phone”, they may understand some English but not all” (Patient 8)

  Culture

“the big thing is, people do not understand, when you look at the cultural groups, they are going to look at it and say, ‘well free, why is it free?’. Preventative, they don’t understand what that means” (Patient 1)

  Skepticism

“University of Calgary, they are very credible, but some people would say, ‘if this is a medical study then why isn’t Health Calgary involved?’” (Patient 1)

  Logistics of enrollment

“The biggest barrier that we had was some of the patients saying that they sometimes can’t get a hold of you”. (Pharmacist 10)

  Not seeing benefit of enrollment

“[Some patients] don’t need any financial help, so they are not interested” (Pharmacist 9)

  Forgetting to enrol

“I don’t have any reservations, I completely forgot about the study” (Patient 6)

  Benefits of the interventions

Tangible benefit:

Copayment elimination: “The free medication because it is a benefit to me because it adds up, sometimes it’s up to $100 a month” (Patient 9)

Self-management education: “I was wondering if there was something that they could maybe come up with that would improve my lifestyle, my conditions.” (Patient 3)

Societal benefit: “Well actually I did want to participate you know, to benefit society, it didn’t really hit me about the free medication part until much later.” (Patient 6)

Personal benefit: “I’m a curious person, I want to find out things, I’m not through learning yet” (Patient 3)

  Social support

Pharmacists: “Somebody is mentioning the cost of their medications, [I would] say, ‘well you know this is something they are trying to discover and maybe you would get some of your medication paid for.’ That definitely seemed to be a good selling point. When people heard that part of it they would think that the phone call was worth their time and effort” (Pharmacist 13)

Friends and family: “My daughter saw [a study promotion] and was all excited, she phoned me and said, mom there’s this study that you should participate in. So, she gave me the phone number and I called.” (Patient 2)

  Straightforward explanation

“When you talk to seniors you’ve got to be straight up front” (Patient 2)

  Recruitment materials

Font size: “You should make [the font on the brochures] bigger because that’s usually done when you are trying to hide something when you have the small print” (Patient 6)

Language inclusions: “[The recruitment materials should] say all languages but officially our languages are English and French and if they need a translation that they can call and be advised in their language” (Patient 8)

Highlighting important study features: “Could you highlight this area [looking for participants who are over the age of 65 and have Blue Cross”]” (Patient 4)