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Primary mental healthcare: care professionals’ perspectives1336Data collectionThe focus groups were guided by a topic guide based on four themes emerging from a previous interview study among patients with MID who received primary MH care (Supplement). 8 This topic guide was critically scrutinised by both the research team and the study’s advisory group, the latter consisting of representatives from primary care, ID care, MH care, addiction care, and associations for patients with ID. This was done to ensure that GPs’ and MHNPs’ perspectives were collected as completely as possible.Prior to the focus group meetings, participants’ basic characteristics were ascertained: sex, age, number of years of work experience, and selfperceived level of experience with patients with MID. All focus groups were moderated by the same researcher (KP), who is an ID physician, assisted by a second researcher, either one of two senior researchers (MK, MM) or a PhD candidate (AB).AnalysisThe focus group discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were analysed following the principles of thematic analysis, 13 supported by ATLAS.ti software (version 22.0.11). Coding was conducted by two researchers independently (KP, and MK or MM). Codes were then collated in preliminary themes and repeatedly discussed among the research team (KP, MK, MM, SL, WA, GL) to refine and define the final themes. The COREQ criteria list for qualitative research was used to guide the analysis and the report. 14ResultsNineteen GPs and nine MHNPs participated in four focus groups held in February and March 2023. Their age ranged from 29 to 65 years; 20 were female. The median work experience was eight years (range 1–28 years), and most participants reported low to average experience with people with MID in their practice (Table 6.1). One focus group took place online, the others live.Overall, the participants perceived their patients with both MID and MH problems as complex patients who, given their high care needs, put pressure Katrien Pouls sHL.indd 133 24-06-2024 16:26