Table 4. Key themes and representative quotesa .
| Exposure: ○ All my family smokes. 3: 004-102 ○ I worked in a tobacco warehouse for about a year…I was a…dancer for 13 years, barroom smoke. 2: 002-110 ○ Working with material, fuzzy material and breathing it in. 2: 001-101 ○ Around different chemicals, paint, plastic, you name it and we did it all. 1: 002-101 |
| Personal and family history: ○ My parents were both smokers…my mother was 92 when she was diagnosed with COPD and my father died of emphysema. 2: 001-139 ○ When it takes that long to recover from 1, when you have like 2 or 3 in the course of a 3 or 4-month winter…it ends up you’re feeling—you’re feeling crummy for 75% of the time. 1: 001-145 ○ I’ve gotten sinus infections in the spring and the fall, I bet, for the last 10 years…and I think like 5 times it has ended up as pneumonia. 2: 006-104; I’ve had pneumonia … maybe 7, 8 times in my life. 3: 004-125 |
| Recent history: ○ The smell of—of detergents and, uh, lovely perfumes do affect, um, my deep breathing. 2: 001-123 ○ If I’m going to be around dust or chemicals or cigarette smoke…I have to wear a mask because if not, it will be like, uh, I will, uh, start feeling the tightness in midst of—at first sign, it’s like my chest will start tightening up. 3: 004-127 ○ You’re trying to breathe and it hurts, and it hurts and you have pain and then it hurts and …then go to the hospital for it—it’s the lungs. 4: 003-131 |
| Symptoms—respiratory and non-respiratory: ○ Just feels like you've got like something like a ton of bricks just sitting on your chest. 2: 002-110 ○ I wouldn't have any trouble breathing hardly, but I'd just be running short on breath. Like I could walk a country mile, like a stroll, but I can't go up a flight of stairs if I get in a hurry. 1: 002-103 ○ I walk up the driveway to my car, and--I'm really tired after that. I feel me [panting] breathing…you kind of feel tired all the time. 2: 002-106 |
| Impact: ○ I’d go out to lunch with…people from my office… I’d really have to kind of push myself to keep up with them ….had to work to keep up. 2: 001-141 ○ I have a hard time…climbing stairs, and I've got to take it slow. I have to walk slowly. 1: 002-113 ○ Walk up and down them halls, and sometimes I just feel like okay, wait, and I stop for a minute. 4: 002-113 |
| Attribution: ○ I've got a smoker's cough because I smoke. 2: 002-109 ○ I noticed I was starting to slow down with my breathing, but it actually got worse after I started having all this other health issues. 1: 002-101 |
Abbreviation: COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
a
Superscripts show subgroup membership and patient ID.