Table 2.
Quotations related to an understanding of family history and genetic factors as risk factors for rheumatoid arthritis
| Code | Quotation |
|---|---|
| Q1 | I see that my mother has it and I'm just worried that it might be passed on to me or my sister or other members of my family. (Participant 19) |
| Q2 | In my opinion it's environmental factors or genetics. (Participant 28) |
| Q3 | So I know it's blood-related…I think if it was your cousin or your aunt there'd be a slim chance…being direct blood-related, I would class myself as, or think of myself that I am at a higher risk than most. (Participant 6) |
| Q4 | I seem to follow my mum in absolutely everything, like my brother and sister they're quite like my dad, they never get ill, they never catch a cold. Whereas if there's a cold going around I will get it and the same with my mum…So I was a bit like ‘oh, maybe I'll get it’. (Participant 18) |
| Q5 | I know that there's a genetic tendency. That it runs in families. I'm female, so I'm more at risk because I'm female…I know first degree relative increases your risk, so yeah, it does worry me. (Participant 10) |
| Q6 | Genetics really worry me because I don't know anything about them and I think when people think of genetics they think of like I don't know it's quite like a complicated thing that we're never going to understand because there's no simple way of putting it…But like your average Joe Bloggs [average person] isn't going to know extensive information about your genes. (Participant 20) |
| Q7 | For me personally it's kind of hard facts and figures; I'm more comfortable knowing in terms of percentages. I know my dad has got rheumatoid arthritis, and if you've got a hard fact and figure to say that the chances of a close relative, son or daughter, developing rheumatoid arthritis at some point in their life then that information would be useful to me. (Participant 5) |
| Q8 | It [life] wouldn't be predictable anymore; I wouldn't know how things would be from one day to the next, or in an hour's time, when I woke up the next morning, wondering what the day would bring. I think it's pretty serious, it restricts your everyday life. And it differs—my father has pain and sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not; it's unpredictable. (Participant 25) |
| Q9 | I do worry about it, yeah, because I don't want to end up developing anything like that. I like to keep busy and I don't want to be restricted. It is a big worry, yeah. I don't want to go through what my mum's going through at the moment, because she's been through a lot. (Participant 13) |
| Q10 | I've got pain down my left leg [okay], but I just don't know whether it's sciatica, or whether it could be something linked to arthritis, but I'm too frightened to go and have a scan. So I probably do need it to find that. I'm just putting it off. (Participant 15) |