Research | Open Access | Volume 9 (2): Article 108 | Published: 29 Jun 2026
Menu, Tables and Figures
Kingsley Eyram King-Kuadzi1, &
1Department of Psychology, Heritage Christian University, Amasaman, Accra, Ghana
&Corresponding author: Kingsley Eyram King-Kuadzi, Department of Psychology, Heritage Christian University, Amasaman, Accra, Ghana, Email: kek024a@hcu.edu.gh, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-1107-3814
Received: 13 Apr 2026, Accepted: 28 Jun 2026, Published: 29 Jun 2026
Domain: Mental Health
Keywords: Laboratory diagnosis, emotional experiences, psychological distress, life-threatening conditions, stigma, Ghana, Qualitative research
©Kingsley Eyram King-Kuadzi et al. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health (ISSN: 2664-2824). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cite this article: Kingsley Eyram King-Kuadzi et al., Emotional and psychological experiences of patients receiving positive laboratory results for life-threatening conditions in Ghana; 9(2):108. https://doi.org/10.37432/jieph-d-26-00119
Introduction: Laboratory results that confirm life-threatening conditions are clinically decisive, yet the emotional and psychological experiences of patients receiving such results remain insufficiently examined in Ghana. This study explored how adults interpreted and responded to positive laboratory results for conditions including HIV, hepatitis B, sickle cell disease, and cancer.
Methods: Guided by an interpretivist paradigm, the study used a qualitative design and purposive sampling to recruit 18 adults who had received a positive laboratory result within the preceding six months. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in private clinical spaces and analysed using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis. Analytic rigour was strengthened through iterative familiarisation, systematic manual coding, comparison of candidate themes against the full dataset, reflexive memoing, and transparent documentation of theme development.
Results: Five themes were generated: immediate emotional shock and distress; fear of death and uncertainty; stigma and anticipated social rejection; spiritual and cultural interpretations of diagnosis; and coping mechanisms and support systems. Participants described shock, disbelief, panic, hopelessness, fear of death, secrecy, internalised stigma, and culturally grounded attempts to make sense of the diagnosis. Support from family, peers, prayer, religious counselling, and positive reframing helped some participants regain a degree of psychological stability.
Conclusion: The study extends existing disease-specific literature by showing that the disclosure of positive laboratory results can function as a cross-cutting psychosocial event shaped by diagnostic communication, stigma, cultural meaning systems, and available support. These findings support the integration of empathetic result disclosure, immediate psychosocial screening, counselling referral pathways, and culturally sensitive patient education within Ghanaian health facilities.
Laboratory diagnostics are central to contemporary healthcare because they guide disease detection, treatment decisions, public health surveillance, and clinical risk management. Recent scholarship has further emphasized the expanding role of diagnostic systems in antimicrobial resistance monitoring, molecular pathogen detection, emerging infectious disease preparedness, healthcare-associated infection control, and the management of device-associated infections [1–6]. Although this literature demonstrates the biomedical and systems-level value of diagnostics, it pays comparatively less attention to the patient’s emotional experience when a laboratory result confirms a serious or potentially life-threatening condition.
For patients, a positive laboratory result may be received not simply as biomedical information but as a personally disruptive event that raises immediate questions about survival, identity, family responsibilities, social acceptance, and future life possibilities. Evidence from cancer, HIV, hepatitis B, and sickle cell disease research shows that serious diagnoses can be associated with fear, shock, anxiety, uncertainty, shame, and altered disclosure decisions [7,8]. In Ghana, these experiences are often situated within social worlds where illness may be interpreted through biomedical, cultural, and spiritual frames, and where conditions such as HIV, hepatitis B, and sickle cell disease may attract stigmatising assumptions [7,9].
However, the available literature remains fragmented. Most Ghanaian and regional studies examine psychosocial experiences within a single disease category, such as hepatitis B stigma, HIV disclosure, breast cancer coping, or sickle cell disease-related stigma. These studies are valuable, but they do not directly address the broader experience of receiving a positive laboratory result as a diagnostic event that may generate emotional distress across different life-threatening conditions. Nor do they sufficiently connect laboratory disclosure, psychosocial responses, and culturally mediated meaning-making within a single qualitative account. This represents an important gap for patient-centred public health practice, particularly as laboratory services increasingly serve as the point at which patients first confront a serious diagnosis.
This study, therefore, explored the emotional and psychological experiences of adults in Ghana who had recently received positive laboratory results for life-threatening conditions. Specifically, it examined their immediate emotional reactions, fears and uncertainties, experiences of stigma and disclosure, spiritual and cultural interpretations of diagnosis, and coping resources. By focusing on the diagnostic moment and its aftermath, the study contributes to a more patient-centred understanding of laboratory medicine and offers practical implications for result disclosure, counselling, referral, and culturally responsive care.
Research on serious illness diagnosis consistently indicates that patients may experience intense emotional disruption after learning that they have a life-threatening condition. In adolescent and young adult cancer populations, for example, diagnosis has been associated with fear, uncertainty, grief, and a sense of abrupt life disruption [8]. A recent qualitative study on breast cancer coping in Ghana similarly found that catastrophic appraisal of diagnosis was followed by sustained sadness, anxiety, and feelings of abandonment [10]. These studies suggest that diagnosis-related distress is not confined to one disease category, although the severity and meaning of that distress may vary by condition and context.
Stigma is another prominent theme in the literature, particularly for conditions whose social meanings are shaped by assumptions about contagion, morality, heredity, or death. In Ghana, persons living with chronic hepatitis B have reported emotional distress linked to perceived severity, fear of stigma, and beliefs that the disease may be associated with curses or moral judgment [7,9]. Studies of HIV disclosure in Ghana likewise indicate that stigma, social support, and fear of relational consequences influence whether and how people disclose their status [11,12]. Among young adults with sickle cell disease in Accra, stigma has been linked to social exclusion, misrecognition, and negative identity consequences [13].
Despite these contributions, the literature tends to focus on condition-specific psychosocial burdens rather than on the laboratory disclosure event itself. This creates two limitations. First, the emotional impact of receiving a positive result may be obscured when research begins after patients have already entered treatment or long-term coping trajectories. Second, the diagnostic process is not always examined as a health-system interaction in which communication style, clarity of explanation, and availability of support can either reduce or compound distress. This is significant because clinical microbiology and diagnostic medicine are increasingly framed as central to timely care, risk management, and public health preparedness [2–6], yet their patient-facing psychological consequences remain under-theorised.
The present study addresses this gap by examining how adults in Ghana experience, emotionally and psychologically, the receipt of positive laboratory results for several life-threatening conditions. This cross-condition focus does not erase disease-specific differences; rather, it identifies shared psychosocial processes that may inform disclosure practices, counselling support, and patient-centred diagnostic pathways.
Study design
This study adopted an interpretivist paradigm and a qualitative exploratory design. An interpretivist orientation was appropriate because the study sought to understand how participants made sense of positive laboratory results within their personal, social, cultural, and spiritual contexts. A qualitative design enabled a detailed exploration of emotional reactions, fears, disclosure decisions, and coping processes that would be difficult to adequately capture with structured quantitative instruments alone.
Theoretical framework
The study was informed by three complementary theoretical perspectives: Stress and Coping Theory, Stigma Theory, and Meaning-Making Theory. These frameworks were not used as predetermined coding categories. Instead, the analysis proceeded inductively, and the frameworks were subsequently used as sensitising interpretive resources to deepen the explanation of the themes.
Stress and Coping Theory conceptualises serious health events as stressors that are appraised in terms of threat, loss, and perceived coping capacity [14]. In the present study, this framework helped interpret immediate reactions such as shock, panic, fear of death, and uncertainty, as well as later attempts to cope through acceptance, positive reframing, support-seeking, and spirituality.
Stigma Theory was relevant for understanding secrecy, selective disclosure, anticipated discrimination, and internalised shame [15]. These responses illustrate how the emotional burden of a diagnosis is shaped not only by the condition itself but also by socially circulating meanings attached to illness.
Meaning-Making Theory helped explain how participants interpreted positive results through religious, spiritual, and cultural frames, including beliefs about divine punishment, spiritual attack, destiny, and moral reflection [16]. In the Ghanaian context, such interpretations may coexist with biomedical explanations rather than simply replacing them. Together, these perspectives support a layered understanding of diagnosis as an emotional, social, and meaning-making event.
Study setting
The study was conducted in four public health facilities in Ghana, comprising two regional hospitals and two district hospitals. These facilities were selected because they routinely provide laboratory diagnostic services and clinical follow-up for conditions such as HIV, hepatitis B, sickle cell disease, and cancer. They also serve patients from urban, peri-urban, and surrounding catchment communities, making them suitable locations for examining diverse experiences of diagnosis disclosure. Data collection took place in private spaces within the selected facilities to preserve confidentiality and support open discussion.
Study population and sampling
The study population comprised adult patients aged 18 years or older who had received a positive laboratory result for a life-threatening condition within the six months preceding the interview. Conditions represented in the study included HIV, hepatitis B, sickle cell disease, and cancer. Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants with direct and recent experience of receiving a serious positive laboratory result who could provide information-rich accounts of that experience.
Participants were eligible if they were aged 18 years or older; had received a positive laboratory result for one of the target life-threatening conditions within the previous six months; were clinically and emotionally able to participate in an interview at the time of recruitment; could provide informed consent; and could communicate in English or a relevant local language available to the researcher. The study, therefore, focused only on participants who met these eligibility criteria and were able to provide information-rich accounts of the experience of receiving a serious positive laboratory result
A total of 18 participants were included in the final analysis. Saturation was assessed throughout the iterative process of data collection and analysis. It was deemed to have been reached when additional interviews no longer generated substantively new codes, altered the emerging thematic structure, or introduced meaningfully distinct dimensions of the core experiences under study.
Data collection and instruments
Data were collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews. The interview guide addressed five areas: participants’ immediate reactions to the positive laboratory result; their interpretation of the diagnosis; emotional and psychological consequences following disclosure; perceptions of how the result was communicated by healthcare personnel; and coping strategies, support systems, and help-seeking after diagnosis. The semi-structured format allowed consistency across interviews while creating space for participants to narrate experiences in their own terms.
The interview guide was developed by the author in line with the study objectives, the interpretivist orientation of the study, the three sensitising theoretical perspectives, and relevant empirical literature on diagnosis-related distress, stigma, disclosure, and coping in cancer, HIV, hepatitis B, and sickle cell disease [7–16]. It was not adapted from a single standardised instrument; rather, it was researcher-developed and reviewed for clarity, relevance, cultural appropriateness, and sensitivity to participants’ emotional vulnerability. The guide was refined to ensure that questions were open-ended, non-leading, and appropriate for exploring participants’ lived experiences of receiving positive laboratory results.
Interviews were conducted in private and comfortable spaces within the health facilities to minimise interruptions and protect confidentiality. Depending on participant preference, interviews were conducted in English or a relevant local language. With written informed consent, interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Interviews conducted in local languages were translated into English with attention to preserving the meaning, tone, and contextual significance of participants’ accounts.
Data analysis
Data were analysed using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis [17,18]. Analysis followed six recursive phases: familiarisation with the transcripts; generation of initial codes; construction of candidate themes; review of candidate themes against the coded extracts and full dataset; definition and naming of themes; and production of the analytic narrative. Coding was conducted manually, and the analysis was primarily inductive, allowing patterns to be developed from participants’ accounts rather than imposed from the theoretical framework.
To strengthen analytic rigour, coding decisions were revisited across the dataset, candidate themes were repeatedly compared with the raw extracts, and reflexive notes were used to document interpretive choices, uncertainties, and emerging relationships among themes. In line with reflexive thematic analysis, the emphasis was not on statistical intercoder reliability but on interpretive coherence, transparency, and close engagement with the data.
Reflexivity
The interviewer’s professional background in counselling psychology and medical laboratory science informed sensitivity to both the clinical meaning of diagnostic results and the emotional vulnerability of participants receiving life-threatening diagnoses. This dual positioning created potential strengths, including empathetic interviewing and awareness of result-disclosure processes, but also required attention to the possibility of over-interpreting distress through professional assumptions. Reflexive notes were therefore used during data collection and analysis to monitor emerging interpretations, distinguish participants’ meanings from researcher inferences, and preserve a patient-centred analytic stance.
Ethical considerations
Approval was obtained from the Health Services Directorate with reference number HSD/EC/NMIMR/02/. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants before the interviews. Participants were informed of the study purpose, confidentiality protections, voluntary participation, and their right to decline any question or withdraw at any stage without penalty.
Given the sensitivity of discussing serious diagnoses, participant well-being was actively safeguarded. Interviews were conducted with attention to signs of distress, and participants were offered pauses or discontinuation where necessary. Pseudonyms were used in all transcripts and reporting, and identifying information was removed during transcription. Where participants experienced significant emotional distress or requested further support, referral to appropriate psychological or counselling services was arranged in accordance with the procedures available at the study site.
Eighteen participants were included in the analysis. They represented a range of gender profiles, educational backgrounds, occupations, and diagnoses (Table 1). The diversity of the sample supported exploration of shared emotional processes while retaining attention to variations in social position and condition type.
Five interrelated themes were generated (Table 2). Together, they show that receiving a positive laboratory result was experienced as a clinically significant and psychosocially disruptive event. The results are presented below with concise interpretive commentary and illustrative participant quotations.
Theme 1: Immediate Emotional Shock and Distress
Participants often described the disclosure moment as disorienting. The positive result interrupted ordinary expectations and created a temporary difficulty in processing information. Emotional reactions included numbness, disbelief, crying, panic, and confusion, especially when participants felt they did not fully understand the meaning or implications of the result.
“When they told me, I just went quiet. It was as if my mind refused to accept what I had heard. I sat there, but I was not really present. Even as the nurse continued talking, I kept asking myself, is this really happening to me?” (Female participant with sickle cell disease)
P3’s account illustrates emotional numbing at the point of disclosure, while also showing that the patient was attempting to process the information cognitively. The experience was not simply sadness; it was a momentary disruption in the ability to absorb what had been communicated.
“They mentioned the condition, but I was confused. What does this really mean? Is it serious? Can it be treated? Nobody explained it clearly, so I was left there trying to interpret it myself.” (Female participant with HIV)
P7’s account highlights the importance of communication. Confusion intensified distress when diagnostic information was not immediately accompanied by a clear explanation and reassurance.
Theme 2: Fear of Death and Uncertainty
Many participants interpreted the positive result as a direct threat to life. Their accounts extended beyond fear of illness to broader existential concerns about mortality, future plans, and family responsibilities. This theme reflects a catastrophic appraisal of diagnosis and the destabilisation of future orientation.
“The moment I heard it, my mind went straight to death. I did not even think about treatment. I said to myself, so this is how I will die.” (Male participant with cancer)
P4’s response shows how diagnosis may initially be equated with finality rather than with the possibility of treatment. This is clinically important because such appraisals may shape immediate emotional stability and subsequent engagement with care.
“I was not even thinking about myself anymore. I was asking, “What will happen to my children? I kept wondering whether to tell them or protect them from the truth.” (Male participant with cancer)
P12’s account reveals the relational dimension of diagnosis-related fear. Distress was tied not only to personal survival but also to perceived obligations and possible disruption of family life.
Theme 3: Stigma and Anticipated Social Rejection
Participants described concerns about how others might perceive or treat them if their diagnosis became known. These concerns shaped disclosure decisions and contributed to isolation, self-blame, and selective communication. Stigma was therefore experienced both as an anticipated social response and as an internal psychological burden.
“I reflected inwardly, it is better nobody knows, what if people start avoiding me? So, I decided to keep quiet. It became a secret I was carrying alone.” (Female participant with HIV)
P15’s account suggests that secrecy functioned as self-protection, but it also increased emotional isolation. The attempt to avoid stigma could therefore limit access to support.
“Sometimes I blamed myself, asking, ‘ Is this my fault? I felt ashamed, as if I had done something wrong. That feeling was very heavy on me.” (Male participant with HIV)
P5’s account demonstrates internalised stigma, in which the social devaluation attached to illness becomes redirected inward as guilt and shame.
Theme 4: Spiritual and Cultural Interpretations
Participants frequently made sense of diagnosis through spiritual and cultural frames. These interpretations did not necessarily replace biomedical understanding; rather, they existed alongside it as additional explanatory resources. The accounts included reflection on divine punishment, spiritual attack, fate, destiny, and moral causation.
“I could not stop looking up. Is God punishing me? I reflected on my life, trying to work out what I had done wrong. It felt like a conversation between God and me.” (Male participant with HIV)
P18’s account shows how diagnosis can initiate spiritual self-examination and moral meaning-making, which may deepen distress when illness is interpreted through the lens of guilt or punishment.
“Could this be spiritual? In our culture, we do not ignore such things. So, I wanted to find out whether this is medical or something like that.” (Male participant with cancer)
P8’s account reflects a negotiated interpretation in which biomedical and spiritual explanations are considered simultaneously. This finding supports the need for culturally sensitive communication that neither dismisses patients’ meaning systems nor provides clear evidence-based guidance.
Theme 5: Coping Mechanisms and Support Systems
Despite the distress associated with diagnosis, participants also described resources that supported adaptation. These included gradual acceptance, positive reframing, family reassurance, peer support, prayer, and religious counselling. The accounts suggest that coping was not a single response but a process through which participants regained partial control and meaning.
“At first, I was fighting it in my mind, then I pulled myself together and said, ‘This is my reality. Accepting it did not mean I liked it, but it helped me move forward.” (Female participant with sickle cell disease)
P11’s account illustrates acceptance as a pragmatic shift from resistance to psychological adjustment. This form of coping did not remove distress, but it enabled forward movement.
“My family kept telling me, ‘You are not alone. That gave me strength and changed how I was thinking about the situation.” (Female participant with hepatitis B)
P9’s experience indicates that family support can influence both emotional regulation and interpretation of diagnosis. Participants also described peer support and spiritual coping as important sources of reassurance.
This study examined the emotional and psychological experiences of adults in Ghana after receiving positive laboratory results for life-threatening conditions. The findings show that diagnosis disclosure may trigger a layered psychosocial response that includes immediate emotional shock, catastrophic interpretations of mortality, stigma-related disclosure concerns, spiritually and culturally mediated meaning-making, and efforts to cope through relational and spiritual support. These findings are consistent with disease-specific literature on cancer, HIV, hepatitis B, and sickle cell disease, but extend it by foregrounding the diagnostic disclosure event as a common psychosocial turning point [7–9,13–16].
Existing evidence indicates that serious illness diagnoses can generate fear, uncertainty, grief, shame, altered disclosure decisions, and sustained emotional disruption [7,8,13–16]. In Ghana, these responses are often situated within social contexts where illness may be interpreted through biomedical, cultural, and spiritual frames, and where conditions such as HIV, hepatitis B, and sickle cell disease may attract stigmatising assumptions [7,9,14–16]. The present study adds that these psychosocial processes can begin at the point of laboratory result disclosure rather than only after patients have entered treatment or long-term coping trajectories.
The first two themes, immediate emotional shock and fear of death, align with Stress and Coping Theory, which suggests that people initially appraise threatening events in relation to perceived harm and coping resources [10]. Participants’ accounts of numbness, disbelief, panic, and fears of dying show that a positive result may be interpreted before the patient has had time to absorb treatment information or future care options. Similar patterns of catastrophic appraisal and emotional disruption have been reported in cancer diagnosis research in Ghana and elsewhere [8,13]. In the present study, however, such responses were observed across multiple diagnostic categories, indicating that disclosure practices may require psychosocial safeguards that are not condition-specific.
The findings on stigma and disclosure reinforce existing Ghanaian evidence from research on hepatitis B, HIV, and sickle cell disease [7,9,14–16]. The present analysis contributes by showing how anticipated rejection can emerge immediately after diagnosis and influence patients’ decisions to seek support. Through the lens of Stigma Theory, secrecy and selective disclosure can be understood as protective responses to feared devaluation, but they may also intensify isolation and delay help-seeking.
Spiritual and cultural interpretations formed a further layer of diagnosis processing. Participants did not necessarily reject biomedical explanations; rather, some attempted to reconcile laboratory results with broader religious and cultural understandings of suffering, punishment, destiny, or spiritual attack. Meaning-Making Theory is useful here because it explains how people seek coherence following disruptive events [12]. This finding is particularly relevant in Ghanaian healthcare settings, where culturally dismissive communication may alienate patients, while culturally sensitive and clinically grounded communication may improve trust and engagement.
The coping theme adds an operational dimension to the study. Family support, peer support, prayer, religious counselling, acceptance, and positive reframing were described as resources for emotional stabilisation. These findings suggest that diagnosis disclosure should not end with the delivery of test results. Rather, it should create a pathway to explanation, emotional containment, psychosocial screening, and referral where indicated. The diagnostic literature increasingly highlights the expanding clinical and public health importance of laboratory services [1–6]. The present study complements that literature by showing that patient-centred diagnostic quality must also include attention to the human consequences of communicating results.
The findings should be interpreted as context-specific qualitative insights rather than statistically generalisable claims. Nonetheless, they offer a coherent account of shared psychosocial processes that may be relevant to clinical communication, counselling practice, laboratory-outpatient pathways, and public health approaches to stigma reduction.
Practical implications and recommendations
First, public health facilities should strengthen protocols for compassionate disclosure of positive laboratory results, particularly for diagnoses likely to provoke fear, stigma, or catastrophic interpretations. Result disclosure should include a clear explanation of the condition, immediate next steps, and an opportunity for patients to ask questions.
Second, laboratories and outpatient units should develop structured psychosocial referral pathways. A brief post-disclosure emotional check-in, followed by counselling referral where needed, could reduce confusion, acute distress, and unsupported crisis reactions.
Third, patient education materials should address both biomedical facts and common misconceptions that fuel fear and stigma. Conditions such as HIV, hepatitis B, and sickle cell disease may require tailored sensitisation messages for patients, families, and communities.
Fourth, training curricula for laboratory professionals, nurses, counsellors, and clinicians should include communication skills for sensitive disclosure of results, recognition of distress, and culturally responsive responses to spiritual or moral interpretations of illness.
Fifth, peer support and family-inclusive counselling options may be valuable where appropriate and with patients’ consent. Such supports can reduce isolation while respecting confidentiality and individual disclosure preferences.
Limitations
This study has several limitations. First, it was conducted in selected public health facilities and involved a small purposive sample; the findings are therefore not intended to be statistically generalisable. Second, participants represented different diagnostic categories, each with distinct clinical trajectories, stigma profiles, and treatment pathways. The cross-condition approach allowed identification of shared psychosocial processes, but it may obscure condition-specific differences that warrant separate study. Third, participants were interviewed within six months of diagnosis, and their accounts may have been shaped by recall, current coping status, and subsequent experiences of care. Fourth, the study relied on interview data only and did not include longitudinal follow-up or triangulation with healthcare providers, family members, or observational data.
Future research
Future research should examine diagnosis-related emotional experiences longitudinally to understand how distress, stigma, meaning-making, and coping evolve over time. Mixed-methods studies could combine qualitative accounts with validated measures of anxiety, depressive symptoms, perceived stigma, and treatment engagement. Further work may also compare patient experiences across diagnostic categories, examine healthcare providers’ perspectives on result disclosure, and evaluate interventions such as immediate counselling, peer support referral, or structured communication training for staff.
Receiving a positive laboratory result for a life-threatening condition in Ghana was experienced by participants as more than a biomedical event. It was an emotionally disruptive, socially consequential, and culturally interpreted moment that shaped fears about death, disclosure, identity, family responsibility, and future coping. The findings demonstrate the need for diagnostic care pathways that combine technical accuracy with empathetic communication, psychosocial support, and cultural sensitivity. Strengthening these dimensions of care may improve both the immediate patient experience and longer-term engagement with treatment and support services.
What is already known about the topic
What this study adds
The author gratefully acknowledges the participants who willingly shared their experiences for this study. I also appreciate the support of the staff of the selected public health facilities in Ghana, where the research was conducted. Their cooperation contributed significantly to the successful completion of this study.
| Number | Participants | Gender | Education Level | Occupation | Diagnosis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 | Female | SHS | Trader | HIV |
| 2 | P2 | Male | Tertiary | Teacher | Hepatitis B |
| 3 | P3 | Female | SHS | Student | Sickle Cell Disease |
| 4 | P4 | Male | Basic | Farmer | Cancer |
| 5 | P5 | Male | Tertiary | Student | HIV |
| 6 | P6 | Male | SHS | Driver | Hepatitis B |
| 7 | P7 | Female | SHS | Hairdresser | HIV |
| 8 | P8 | Male | Basic | Trader | Cancer |
| 9 | P9 | Female | Tertiary | Banker | Hepatitis B |
| 10 | P10 | Male | SHS | Artisan | HIV |
| 11 | P11 | Female | Tertiary | Nurse | Sickle Cell Disease |
| 12 | P12 | Male | Basic | Farmer | Cancer |
| 13 | P13 | Female | SHS | Seamstress | HIV |
| 14 | P14 | Female | Tertiary | Civil Servant | Hepatitis B |
| 15 | P15 | Female | Tertiary | Student | HIV |
| 16 | P16 | Male | Basic | Trader | Cancer |
| 17 | P17 | Female | Tertiary | Teacher | HIV |
| 18 | P18 | Male | SHS | Driver | HIV |
| Theme | Core Analytic Focus | Illustrative Experiences |
|---|---|---|
| Immediate emotional shock and distress | Diagnosis is an abrupt emotional disruption | Numbness, disbelief, crying, panic, confusion |
| Fear of death and uncertainty | Diagnosis appraised as a threat to survival and family continuity | Fear of dying, hopelessness, lifespan anxiety, worry about dependants |
| Stigma and anticipated social rejection | Social meanings of illness shape disclosure and self-perception | Secrecy, selective disclosure, anticipated discrimination, shame |
| Spiritual and cultural interpretations | Participants draw on multiple meaning systems to interpret the diagnosis | Divine punishment, spiritual attack, destiny, moral reflection |
| Coping mechanisms and support systems | Adaptation occurs through internal, relational, and spiritual resources | Acceptance, positive reframing, family support, peer support, prayer, and religious counselling |
| Source: Thematic analysis of interview data. | ||