Table 4.

Definitions and exemplar quotes for symptom-related a posteriori conceptual categories

Category	Definition	Exemplar quotes	Psychiatric group	Medical group	Total quotes	Number of focus groups	Multiply coded quotesa
Anger	Expressions of anger such as rage and fury, aggressive acts, hostile attitudes	‘I can’t tell you how many times I have broke this, and broke that, and punched my fist through a wall.’ ‘When [participant] talked about suicidal, you can also feel homicidal. Because I wanted to.’	35	25	60	4	34
Anxiety	References to worry and nervousness	‘But a lot of anxiety. It’s like waiting for the other shoe to fall.’ ‘High anxiety and you know, worry about the future.’	7	7	14	3	5
Paranoia	Persecutory fears; thoughts that one is being talking about or plotted against.	‘I don’t know the right word but I find it a lot in my daughter who has depression and she feels like everybody is out to get her.’ ‘I’m basically paranoid anyway and it does exacerbate it.’	0	3	3	2	0
Regretful rumination	Intrusive thoughts regarding past failures; an inability to move on from negative events	‘She can’t get it out and she can’t let go.’ ‘If somebody says ‘What’s going on?’ I can just say ‘Well this is ruined…this I screwed up here, I screwed up there…I blew this…I blew that…’	7	3	10	4	6
Substance use	Alcohol, street drugs, prescription misuse	‘A lot of people when they get depressed will either smoke a lot, I mean, drink…’ ‘Both times I got laid off, I remember going home and having a couple of beers with a male co-worker or one of my friends would come over.’	1	2	3	2	0
Alexithymia	Inability to describe or label emotions	‘The inability to reach out – not being able to express feelings.’ ‘I wouldn’t allow my feelings to…I wouldn’t allow myself to feel.’	2	1	3	2	2
Avoidance	Withdrawing from activity in general distinguished from social withdrawal	‘I just want to lay here and…pretend the real world don’t exist. ‘…when I enter the secret life, I’m avoiding…its like, almost like a denial factor.’	4	0	4	1	2
Emotional pain	General description of non-physical pain	‘That kind of feeling is not something that anyone would want. It’s hurting you. It hurts so that you can’t – it’s like something inside knotting up.’ ‘…there’s a lot of pain that goes on in depression, not only for you but the people around you.’	4	4	8	2	3
Amotivation	Descriptions of low motivation distinct from decreased activity or impaired physical functioning	‘Yeah, it’s kind of like just ‘whatever” ‘Can’t go from thinking to action.’	5	0	5	2	4

^aIndicates that this and at least one other code was assigned to the same quote.