Table 3 Participants’ emotional reactions to a pulmonary nodule

Persistent distress

 General

Veteran O-V2

‘Yeah. Those [nodules] I was definitely worried about. I really was. Yeah. It was kind of, you know, off and on. I’d think about it. It would get me a little depressed.’

Veteran D-V2

‘No I kinda carried it [stress] the whole time. And things triggered it. You know seeing stuff on TV talking about cancer, just hearing things triggered it.’

 Length of follow-up

Veteran Q-V2

‘Because from the first initial CT exam to the last one there was a lot of time there that… you be thinking about this and you just wanna hurry up and know what’s happening with your body.’

Veteran L-V2

‘The other part of this is, I thought like, ‘well I’m waiting a year,’ and anything that I found out if there is an issue, that the sooner you deal with it the better off you are, and I thought waiting a year for another x-ray or scan is like way too long.’

Decreased distress over time

 General

Veteran L-V2

‘Well I would say the first month or two was probably 6 or 7 [distress level], and then it dropped down to probably 3 or 4, and then it went down probably recently more like a- when I saw my primary care physician again I’d say it was probably just curiosity, it was probably more like 1 or 2.’

Veteran D-V3

‘Well no, you know I worried about it a little bit but no, I wasn’t freaked out like I was the first time [interview].’

 Lack of symptoms

Veteran F-V3

‘No because it’s something that doesn’t bother you. You know? When something bothers you of course then you know.’

 Favourable result

Veteran I-V2

‘Well the relief was that they said it was better, that the results looked better than before.’

 Cues from PCP

Veteran H-V3

‘Um, [the PCP] was very matter of fact about it. Uh, [the PCP] said they didn’t think it was [cancer], [the PCP] didn’t think it was, but we’d keep an eye on it. And I wasn’t feeling, you know, bad or anything and I said, ‘ok.’’