Table 1 Example clinician 1 interview questions

Concept elicitation: Open ended questions

• “Please tell me about the symptoms that patients experience while suffering from an ACE inhibitor-induced angioedema attack?”

• “What symptoms are most frequently reported by patients?”

• “Where on the body do symptoms of ACE inhibitor induced angioedema tend to occur?”

Concept elicitation: Direct, focused questions

• “How would you usually treat patients with ACE inhibitor-induced angioedema?”

• “How do you decide when a patient is ready to be discharged? What symptoms do you evaluate? Do you weigh some symptoms more than others? How?”

• “On a scale from 0–4, with 0 being none; absence of symptoms and 4 being very severe, in your opinion what reduction would constitute a clinically meaningful improvement in each of the symptoms of an ACE inhibitor-induced angioedema attack?”

• Using the same scale (0 = none to 4 = very severe), to what level would they need to get to (for each symptom), in order to feel comfortable discharging them? Are some symptoms more important than others?

Cognitive debriefing

• “Please read case study A and talk me through your thoughts and decisions before rating the patient’s symptoms using the scale provided”

• “What diagnosis did you give this patient? What led you to this decision?”

• “What rating did you give for the symptom Difficulty Swallowing? What led you to this decision?”

• “At what point would you consider that this patient could be discharged from hospital? (probe for each symptom) Do you think this patient can be discharged based on the information given about their current state?”

• “Do you feel that this [discharge] criteria is clinically meaningful?”

• “Do you feel this assessment captures all of the key symptoms of ACE inhibitor-induced angioedema?”