Excerpts from focus groups to illustrate participants sharing experiences about treatment seeking
| Topic | Illustrative excerpt |
|---|---|
| The impact of clinicians and the healthcare system | FP: ‘A friend of mine … went down to [town] hospital and… she’s been on a pain management course — |
| MP: ‘They run one in [town 2].’ | |
| FP ‘Oh do they?’ | |
| FP ‘Ask your doctor. ‘ | |
| MP ‘Ask your GP to be referred.’ | |
| FP ‘Yeah to the pain clinic.’ | |
| MP ‘Ask to be referred to the pain clinic in [town 2] and they will refer you on a pain management program, but you have to go through the pain clinic … to go on it.’ | |
| FP ‘No one’s offered me a pain clinic.’ (FG13) | |
| Self-management | FP1:‘it is doing your homework about who you need to see and why you need to see them but I’m sure —’ |
| FP2:‘That’s the doctor’s job isn’t it?’ | |
| FP1:‘Not always, not always.’ | |
| FP3:‘I think you have to take some responsibility for —’ | |
| FP2:‘But I’m nowhere near a doctor, so if I’ve got a certain pain I wouldn’t know who to go to, I would have no idea.’ (FG8) | |
FP = female participant. MP = male participant.