Maud Hevink

| 109 5 audio recorded in the Netherlands and Poland but not in Canada). In each of these countries, verbal consent was seen as adequate and less burdensome than having to print, sign and return a paper form during COVID lockdowns. If necessary, proxy consent was also obtained from caregivers or guardians. Principles of process consent were also followed by researchers in the field who attended to body language and fluctuations in attention to ensuring willingness to participate was evident throughout the engagement (29). All interviews were designed to be limited to 60 minutes. It was anticipated that interviews may provoke emotional responses - so stimulus photographs were chosen with care, all interviewers had active listening skills and an ability to debrief with participants. Care was taken to monitor signs of upset and participants were asked if they wanted to continue. Contact information for local dementia supports were also available to participants if needed. Study Design and Procedure Study design This study used a cross-sectional qualitative design. Projective and enabling research methods, such as photo elicitation have been successfully utilised in a variety of research contexts, including interviews, dyads, and focus groups. In this study, we collected data in each of these contexts including individual and dyadic (person with dementia and their caregiver) interviews via telephone, online, or face-to-face environments. One mini-focus group was also conducted online. See Table 2 for details. Projective and Enabling Techniques Word Associations Simple, quick activities where research participants suggest words that they think are relevant to the research topic, producing associations that can be the subject of further discussions (25). Word associations have been trialled to a limited extent to explore the experiences of people with dementia. Word associations have been used succesfully to explore social and cultural representations of dementia in the general population (30). We acknowledge that some complex word association techniques may pose difficulties

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