Questions covered six main themes (dental visits,
perceptions of healthy and unhealthy teeth, tooth
cleaning, diet, caring for teeth and the relative
importance of teeth) and were used to guide, rather
than to direct, the discussion (Table II). Therefore,
the moderator allowed the group to deal with issues
as they were raised and used phrases to stimulate
further discussion, such as ‘Can you tell us more
about that?’ and ‘Could you explain?’ This suited
the exploratory nature of the research [36]. The
questions were piloted prior to their use by running
a test focus group with three volunteers.