Table 2. Illustrative quotes from participant interviews (symptom seriousness & urgency).

Quotes illustrating perceived seriousness of RA symptoms
1	“Well, 65 plus, if it’s any younger than that, well then it, it’s even more, serious, if serious is the right word to use but something is wrong, and it’s not just, antiquity.” (p04)
2	“it doesn’t seem to me that this is (serious), this could possibly be, …. I wouldn’t say well that’s something that could be really bad it just sounds like something a lot of people have therefore it would have to be – it would have to be getting progressively worse for me to get medical attention” (p07)
Quotes illustrating perceived seriousness of bowel cancer symptoms
3	“Well (if) I had blood in, in my toilet, I would think it’s serious” (p29)
4	“Oh well, …just like a tummy upset or something like that I would rule that out. It’s more serious than that if it’s ongoing. Particularly if I’ve … lost weight and there’s no change in my diet. And I’ve not been in contact with anybody who had an upset stomach” (p24)
Quotes illustrating perceived seriousness of angina symptoms
5	“Well, I think if it’s your chest or your lungs or whatever, anyway, … it’s pretty serious anyway, isn’t it, …so it’s something that you don’t muck about with really, or it’s things for concern at the end of the day…” (p12).
Quotes illustrating perceived urgency of help-seeking for RA symptoms
6	“That they (symptoms) are quite common, that they’re not debilitating, there seems to be a condition that you can live with, you should be able to manage quite easy.” (p07)
7	“I don’t think I would leave that for any, any length of time. If I saw that the joints were swollen I think… I would be concerned, and – I suppose you’d wait, initially, because …you may think, ‘Oh, well, it could have been…a knock’ or whatever it might be. But if you could see…there were various joints affected, then I would be, I think, making an appointment to see the GP (Family practitioner)…” (p11)
Quotes illustrating perceived urgency of help-seeking for bowel cancer symptoms
8	“No if I saw that this morning I’d be banging on the doctors door.” (p07)
9	“Well if I notice it for a few days I will go to my GP (Family practitioner) because… it’s, obviously if I want to take my weight that might take me a few weeks to notice change in my …..but if I’m feeling tired, run down, lethargic and there’s a change in my bowel habit with blood in my stool I probably would not wait for the weight loss, I probably would go say look something is going on here, I don’t know what it is” (p05).
Quotes illustrating perceived urgency of help-seeking for angina symptoms
10	“Well if it was severe I’d pick up the phone and dial 999 or ask somebody else to do it if it was really, really severe, but … I would sort of basically take it easy, I’d sort of relax, put my feet up and sort of monitor the situation … to see how it is, does it seem a little bit better or does it seem it’s …just as bad.” (p14)
11	“Well it depends as I say how many times, I think probably give it a month maybe, unless they were coming regularly not just a one off every now and again you might put it down to something else.” (p03)
Quote illustrating comparison of urgency across conditions
12	“So it could have been a month. It could be two months with it (RA Symptoms) …. I don’t think I’d be as quick going as what I would with those...With the cancer and...the heart and the other one. No, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be as quick going (with RA symptoms). This would probably – what – about two or three months, I suppose before you’d really … Just how long you could stand the pain for.” (p10)

P04 refers to participant 4in the interview study