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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Jan 21.
Published in final edited form as: Public Health Genomics. 2015 Jan 21;18(2):104–112. doi: 10.1159/000370101

Table 1. Thematic Coding and Q-Sort Results.

Q-Sort Category of Emotion

Thematic Category of Emotion/Affect Code (frequency) Neutral Positive Negative Sample Response
Neutral Emotion (7)
 Not Surprised (50) 12 0 0 Not surprised. It didn't bother me.
 Surprised (38) 8 1 2 Somewhat surprised with a few results.
 Okay (31) 8 3 0 I just thought ‘okay’.
 Indifferent (27) 10 0 2 I don't know, indifferent.
 Not Concerned (22) 6 5 1 I didn't feel anything unusual, not scared.
 Mixed Emotions (15) 6 0 3 Um, kind of a mix of emotions.
 Just Information (6) 8 0 0 I guess it was just information.

Positive Emotion (6)
 Interesting (32) 1 9 0 I was interested…to see what it said.
 Excited (24) 0 12 0 I was definitely excited to get them.
 Happy (16) 0 12 0 I had fewer predispositions than average so I was happy.
 Curious (14) 2 5 0 Curious…(not) life changing.
 Hopeful (4) 0 12 0 I was hopeful (about) getting the results.
 Relieved (4) 0 12 0 Relieved, actually.

Negative Emotion (10)
 Nervous (23) 0 0 12 Nervous at first.
 Afraid (9) 0 0 12 It was kind of scary.
 Concerned (7) 2 1 7 I was concerned, “freaked out”.
 Shocked (7) 3 0 8 It was kind of a shock…(some results) I didn't expect.
 Horrible/Disappointed (6) 0 0 12 It was horrible. I got all the genes.
 Uninformative (5) 3 0 7 It does not say a lot to me.
 Misinformation (4) 0 0 9 I didn't agree with them.
 Skeptical (3) 1 0 7 I don't think that they were accurate.
 Not understandable (2) 1 0 10 I didn't understand some of the numbers.
 Vague (1) 4 0 5 I thought it was vague, I didn't have much reaction.