Table 6.

Theme 5: difficulties with home-spirometry (patient number, time point of interview)

Subtheme	Illustrative quote
Technical issues	Well, in the beginning difficult, purely because of the lack of knowledge on the internet, but when my daughter downloaded the app to the phone she knew how to use it straight away. Someone like me who has only a basic knowledge of the internet struggled. If it was somebody using it that had no knowledge at all…they just would not be able to cope with it without backup. (9, 3m) My new phone is fine but we haven’t been able to complete the test result yet. I tried to do that after we had our discussion at 10 o’clock. Got all the bits and pieces in place and tried to do this but didn’t complete it so there is probably something we need to go through again. (10, BL)
Technique	I think it’s still, it’s a slightly fiddly thing to do in terms of, you know, I get as many…failed tests, as I do successful tests. I just end up blowing maybe four times to get results, so there’s that about it, but that is more of a sort of minor irritation than a problem. (8, 3m) I was actually getting quite upset with it at one point where, you know, sort of, it took me six goes to get three acceptable trials, what have I done differently there that you think is not right? (4, 3m)
Physical effort	I’ve had a horrendous cough and a lot, a lot of chest infections. I haven’t felt that I can actually cope with a lot more than the cough and the chest infections, because if I’m honest, I felt like rubbish. (5, 6m) The only thing is, it does drain you a little bit when you do the test but that is a short-term issue. (10, BL)

BL, base line; 3m, 3 months; 6m, 6 months.