Staff
RECRUITMENT
We aimed to recruit five research nurses, based on the literature and our experience of conducting qualitative health research. We revised this target to 15–20 participants (expanded to include different roles)–this was in response to informal feedback and conversations with sites. We elected to recruit more staff members compared to families because they played a key role in implementing the algorithm recommendations. We also considered that there was a diversity and richness of experiences and insights to be gleaned from staff at different sites and performing diverse roles.Email invites were distributed to a purposive sample of members within research teams who occupied various roles in the trial (e.g., Research Nurses, Consultants and Principal Investigators) across ten different UK sites. These sites were selected to obtain interview data from staff who worked with different levels of recruitment to the RAACENO trial (smaller vs. larger numbers) and based on trends that demonstrated the sites associated with low/high adherence to algorithm recommendations. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant low uptake of individuals responding to our initial invite at the time, we elected to adopt a convenience sampling method to improve recruitment figures. Reminder invites were subsequently distributed and staff at three additional sites were approached. Interviews with trial staff who agreed to participate were arranged and conducted by a researcher (LL) who was not known to the participants prior to data collection.Fifteen trial staff members were included in the final sample size. An additional three individuals had initially expressed interest in participating but 1 was unavailable due to the pressures of the pandemic and 2 did not reply to further contacts. Data saturation became evident following the first 6 interviews [