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Article History

Received: 6 December 2019

Accepted: 27 August 2020

First Online: 12 September 2020

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: JC began recruitment by asking patients during their outpatient visits whether a study on beliefs and behaviours around hepatitis would be useful. The research question was developed according to patients’ questioning about their disease acquisition, and their fears about persistent risks. Patients’ stated priority was to protect their community from hepatitis and HIV. The possibility of social desirability was addressed through a repeated emphasis that participation was fully optional and voluntary, and that their non-participation would not affect their treatment or relationship with the hospital or its staff in any way.Patients were asked whether they would be keen on participating in interviews and the FGD. The face-to-face interviews were deemed best for exploring the research questions. The aim of the focus group was to explore ideas about prevention work in Pakistani communities in Paris.All patients who were contacted agreed to participate and attended their scheduled interview.Patients were asked to assess the burden of the intervention research in terms of their time. They typically emphasized their priority to protect their community.All interviewers followed professional codes of conduct: fully informed voluntary and informed consent, anonymity, confidentiality, full right to withdraw from the study, full right to not respond to an interview question or to terminate the interview, and referral to medical or psychological support if and when requested. Ethics approval was granted by the INSERM ethics committee (IRB number 00003888). Verbal consent was sought from each participant, according to the ethics committee recommendation.All patients, except for one, were not literate in Urdu, French or English, and could not be invited to review their transcripts. However, preliminary findings were presented to participants during the FGD. During the FGD, participants and researchers agreed on further prevention and health promotion work to be conducted in the Seine-St-Denis Pakistani community.

: Not applicable since no individual data was included in the manuscript.

: Both authors declare: support from ANRS (public funding agency) for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous 3 years, no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.