Table 5:

Challenge encountered during self-examination, summary of emergent themes from reflection and focus group.

Summary of emergent themes from reflection and focus group, challenges encountered during self-examination
Theme	Description	Representative quotes
Discharge or blood obstructed self-examination	Most women found vaginal discharge or blood during their exam, for many this obstructed their ability to visualize the cervix.	“I saw a little bit of mucus or maybe discharge.”
		“I saw my cervix a little more reddish, more like, with a little bit of blood.”
		“I stretched forward and heard a sound and saw a little bit of blood. I got scared, and wondered what may have happened, but there was no pain.”
		“[There was] a little pain because I was having discharge.”
		“And saw that I had enough fluid, it was like my cervix was swimming in fluid, but it was a white fluid and from moving, it moved it. It was foamy and it was so interesting to me that I kept moving it,”
Fear of unknown discharge during exam	Vaginal discharge scared many of the women; they were unsure what they were seeing and questioned whether or not they were healthy.	“I got a little scared because I saw this, something white.”
		“I was scared because I saw something, discharge.”
		“I hope its fine, even with something’s, I think, you can see a lot of discharge.”
		“I had enough fluid as if my uterus was dancing in fluid.”
		“My fear was not being able to correctly identify how my uterus was because I saw something like, in the center kind of yellowish stain”
Difficulty finding cervix	Most women indicated difficulty in finding what they thought appeared to be the cervix.	“I really do not know if I did the test well”
		“My experience [finding the cervix] was a little difficult at the beginning.”
		“The only thing that shocked me was seeing the photo, seeing and trying to plan, trying finding and seeing the center the cervix, to not be able to do it.”
		“I did not see the cervix well so I used calla 2.”