Table 3.

Supporting screening decisions themes and subthemes

Themes and subthemes	Illustrative quotations	Understand (n=30)	Did not understand (n=29)
1. A right to decide about mammograms, n (%)		10 (33)*	7 (24)
	‘It’s still left up to me what I want to do… I’m 83 right now’. (P6, age 83 years, NHW, ≤HS). ‘I think the person needs to decide should I go through it?’ (P59, age 74 years, Hispanic, >HS).
2. Varying desire to know about the presence of cancer, n (%)		7 (23)	13 (45)
Better to know	‘If they find something, they just find something. It’s better to know than not know’. (P33, age 74 years, NHB, ≤HS) ‘It’s best to know what’s going on in your body. This is the way I see it’. (P44, age 72 years, Hispanic, ≤HS)	2 (7)	11 (38)
Better to not know	‘I feel like that’s more power to her. If she doesn’t know about it, it’s not going to hurt her’. (P15, age 75 years, NHW, >HS) ‘I know we say you shouldn’t worry about these things but when you find out, you do worry. And, I don’t want to worry’. (P22, age 81 years, NHB, >HS) ‘[There] may be a lot of things wrong with me that I don’t know about’. (P28, age 87 years, NHW, ≤HS)	6 (20)	3 (10)
3. Necessity of screening older women, n (%)		28 (93)	28 (97)
No symptoms, no mammograms	‘If you don’t have no symptoms, then there’s no reason to have the mammogram’. (P18, age 84 years, Hispanic, ≤HS) ‘I don’t think I need one, now that I am older and have no problems’. (P19, age 72 years, NHW, >HS)	24 (80)	10 (35)
Support regular mammograms	‘Would have known if she went to get her screening’. (P17, age 71 years, NHW, ≤HS) ‘Should have had a mammogram’. (P3, age 84 years, NHW, ≤HS)	6 (20)	20 (69)

*Data are presented as number (column percentage) of participants.

HS, high school; NHB, non-Hispanic black; NHW, non-Hispanic white.