LLM Adoption in Primary Care: Qualitative Analysis

According to PLOS One, Pokharel et al. (2026) published a qualitative study protocol on August 7, 2026, that will use semi-structured interviews and the Technology Adoption Behavior (TAB) framework to examine how family physicians in British Columbia perceive LLM adoption. The protocol states recruitment is planned from August 1, 2025 to January 31, 2026 and analysis will combine deductive and inductive thematic coding using NVivo.

• The protocol was published on August 7, 2026, according to PLOS One (Pokharel et al., 2026).
• Pokharel et al. plan purposive sampling of physicians with three LLM-use categories: 50+ uses, 5–50 uses, and fewer than 5 uses, described in the Methods section of PLOS One.
• The protocol reports that the number of Canadians without a family doctor rose from 4.5 million in 2019 to about 6.5 million in 2023, a statistic the authors use to justify focusing on primary care (PLOS One).
• The research team received ethical approval from the UBC Behavioral Research Ethics Board under protocol H25-01658, as stated in PLOS One.
• Pokharel et al. say the study will use the TAB framework to unify perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and task–technology fit in data collection and analysis (PLOS One).

What happened: Pokharel et al. published a qualitative study protocol on August 7, 2026 in PLOS One to examine primary care physicians' perceptions of LLM adoption in clinical practice.

According to PLOS One, the study uses a descriptive qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews conducted in British Columbia, Canada, and the authors plan purposive sampling to include physicians with frequent (50+), occasional (5–50), and minimal (<5) LLM use.

According to PLOS One, the protocol centers the Technology Adoption Behavior (TAB) framework to integrate perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and task–technology fit when designing interview prompts and coding rubrics.

According to PLOS One, interviews will be recorded, transcribed verbatim, deidentified, and analyzed iteratively with NVivo using both deductive TAB-based codes and inductive emergent codes.

Answer: The PLOS One protocol shows how to design a timely, theory-informed qualitative study of clinician technology attitudes and offers concrete design elements researchers can reuse.

According to PLOS One, Pokharel et al. combine deductive TAB-derived codes with inductive coding, which implies teams should pre-map likely constructs such as perceived usefulness and task fit, then remain open to emergent themes during analysis.

According to PLOS One, purposive sampling across predefined LLM-use strata (50+, 5–50, <5) provides a practical model for ensuring variation in experience; qualitative researchers can adapt those cutoffs to other clinician populations to capture novice to expert perspectives.

According to PLOS One, reflexive memos and a multidisciplinary team composition (medical trainee, practicing physician, educators, economist, health systems researchers) are central to richer interpretation and can be implemented in other qualitative LLM adoption studies.

The PLOS One protocol by Pokharel et al. (2026) provides a clear, theory-informed blueprint for conducting a timely qualitative study of primary care physicians' perceptions of LLM adoption, with planned recruitment between August 1, 2025 and January 31, 2026 and analysis using NVivo and the TAB framework.

Researchers and health services teams can reuse the protocol's sampling strata, TAB-derived deductive codes, and reflexive team practices to accelerate robust qualitative inquiry.

Evidano can operationalize the protocol's workflow by automating secure transcription, supporting deductive + inductive thematic coding, and producing segment comparisons and visualizations to inform policy briefings.

To try this workflow on your interview transcripts or open-ended survey data, Try Evidano for free.