Table 1 Focus group discussion questions for the revised PreventT2 curriculum

A. Review of study materials

1. What do you think of materials for the program designed to reduce diabetes risk in Chinese immigrants? What do you like and what do you think needs to be changed?

[probe: too wordy/difficult to find information or easy to find information, etc. Topics that you think should or should not be included, too much or too little covered in each session.]

2. What do you think about the format of the curriculum materials? What do you like or think needs to be changed about the way the printed pages look? Size and style of print, use of graphics and illustrations?

[probe: bound vs. loose leave handouts, etc.]

3. How familiar are you with some of nutrition terms, such as cholesterol, saturated fatty acids, etc.? What information would be needed with respect to the definitions? What terms should we change so the terms will be more clear or easy to understand?

4. What else you want to let us know so that we can make the materials more appealing?

B. Intervention format to be delivered

1. First, have you participated in any online health promotion program before?

a. If you have, what did you like about it? What didn't you like about it?

b. If you have not, why not?

2. What do you think of delivering the DPP program online for Chinese immigrants?

a. Will you like it? Why and why not?

b. Do you think other people will like it? Why or why not?

3. If you think people will not like it, what do you think we should do to help make online delivery acceptable and successful?

C. Intervention components to be delivered

1. Are there anything you can think of to help people eat healthier?

2. Are there any fun activities that you can think of to help people exercise more?

3. What do you think we should do to help people stay motivated to eat healthy and be physically active?

4. In addition to the standard curriculum, we will offer a “tool-box” option to help you overcome some of your problem areas. What do you think we should offer that will be most helpful to you?

[probe: examples include cookbooks/recipes for healthy cooking, jump ropes for increasing physical activity, etc.]

5. Self-monitoring or keeping track of what you eat and your physical activity is an important part of the curriculum as it helps monitor progress and promotes confidence for lifestyle changes

a. What would be the ways we can offer to help participants keep daily records of their physical activity during the six-month core program? [show a pedometer] How can we make keeping track of physical activity easier?

b. What would be the ways we can offer to help participants keep daily records of the food they eat during the core program? [show a copy of the tracker] What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of keeping track daily? Gradually reducing the number of days a person keeps track of food intake? What can we do to make it more interesting and help people keep on with monitoring?