Focus Group Participants. Using a combination of purposive and convenience sampling, community health agents recruited participants for the focus groups. Community health agents are community members that are employed by the public health system and serve to educate the people in their communities on important health topics like tuberculosis, HIV, prenatal care and more. These community health agents also administer vaccines and provide postpartum care to mothers and infants after home deliveries. As such, they are respected and well known in their communities. Each of the 10 community health agents working in different neighborhoods of the communal section of Petite Anse (in Cap Haitien) were asked to recruit approximately 10 women to participate. The health agents promoted the focus group attendance through word of mouth in the community. Focus group dates and time were arranged based on availability of research team and participants. Any potential participants were asked to come if available and willing to participate. Inclusion criteria for participation in the focus groups included being female, 18 years of age or older, willing to participate, and speak either Haitian Creole or French. As all participants spoke Haitian Creole as their primary language, all groups were conducted in Haitian Creole.
Focus Group Participants. Community health workers were asked to identify all adult (age 18 and over) male heads of households for operated and unoperated women with trichiasis in their villages (Appendix III). Selection of participants was not restricted to heads of households of the female trichiasis patients participating in the in-depth interviews. These heads of household were then administered a standard questionnaire to obtain demographic information and to ensure that they were aware of their family member’s diagnosis, understood that trichiasis was operable, and knew where surgery was offered. Six to ten heads of household were required in any one village in order to conduct a focus group discussion. It was estimated that three to five focus groups would be needed to reach data saturation. Focus group discussions took place in a semi-private location in a central area, either near the central mosque or the village chief’s home.
