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Table 4 Do I need medical help right now?

From: "I really should've gone to the doctor": older adults and family caregivers describe their experiences with community-acquired pneumonia

"I will not go to a hospital because of my fear of the emergency room.... They gave me drugs I was allergic to.... that can be scary." [FGP1]

"I had pain with [breathing] right in the left side. That's when I thought, 'Oh, God! Don't tell me this lung is gonna go [too!].' . . . . [They] chop [ped] the right [lung] out. [Will they take the] left out now?'... I thought, 'If I go to the doctor, he's going to tell me that I got another thing in the lung, and I'm going to have another operation, and oh, my God!" [P3]

"I probably would've gone to my own doctor [right away] but going to [a doctor elsewhere, like while on vacation] – you have to go to a clinic and you have to wait so long while [at home], the doctor I go to is very, very good." [P11]

"You put it off because you think, 'Oh, I just can't take time off today, 'cause I've got this, this, and this to do.' ...It's easy to do." [FGP1]

"One reason I didn't go [to the emergency room] Sunday night – I wasn't gonna go and sit down there and [wait] four or five hours to be looked at." [P10]

"And when I called Dr. [X] he didn't have no openings ... so I had to wait. ... He couldn't see me. He was booked too far ahead." [P7]