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Focus groups are a form of group interview that capitalises on communication between research participants to generate data. Although group interviews are often employed simply as a quick and convenient way to collect data from several people simultaneously, true focus groups are explicitly designed to capitalise on group interaction to provide distinctive types of data. This means that instead of the researcher asking each person to respond to a question in turn, people are encouraged to talk to one another, ask questions, exchange anecdotes and comment on each others’ experiences and points of view (see Box 3.1)[1].

Focus groups were originally employed in communication studies to explore the effects of films and television programmes [2]. Not surprisingly, given their history, focus groups are a popular method for assessing health education messages and examining public understandings of illness and …