Table 3.
Major and minor interview themes with illustrative quotes.
| Major themes |
| Varying initial attitudes towards using a handheld fan as an intervention |
| I thought it was very unusual yeah, “I wonder how a fan would work,” so that’s what interested me the most. I couldn’t quite understand the concept of how a fan would work. (P8) |
| At the beginning, I was thinking, that’s a gimmick. (P27) |
| I thought about past experiences, riding the motorbike, keeping your face cool—you can breathe better. Or driving with the window down in the car. So would imagine having a fan would be beneficial. (P29) |
| Benefits of using a handheld fan |
| Just seemed to supply me with more air. Yeah, to get some air into my lungs. (P1) |
| I feel, I feel like uh, example, when you sweat and have cold drinks I feel better. When I have this one, I am like uh, hard with breathing, when I put this one, after I feel I breathe easy and uh, body is more comfortable. (P10) |
| It made me feel relaxed a bit more. (P17) |
| I think that the fan is something that is, secure. It’s something that you can put in your brain that is secure for you. It’s like a backup kind of thing. (P18) |
| I can use the fan in almost any place as long as it’s not noisy or intrusive. (P24) |
| Relative effects of handheld fans, oxygen, and inhaler therapies for symptom management |
| The fan helps a little bit more with it, you know, to help me breathe a bit better quicker (compared to inhaler therapies). Use my puffer a little bit less actually. (P2) |
| Not the same. The fan, it helps a little bit but, when I got really breathless, only the oxygen, oxygen helps more than the fan. I use the fan because it’s easier. (P4) |
| I believe it (the fan) helped more when I didn’t have the oxygen connected to me than when I did. Certainly it helped me in both cases, whether I had the oxygen or not. (P9) |
| Minor theme |
| Challenges of using a handheld fan |
| I’ve been to a lot of shops and, just can’t find any of these. All they have are those manual ones, that needs pumping. (P1) |
| I didn’t want to be in the public using something like that. It’s just embarrassing. (P15) |