Table 7 Impact on work/school concept elicitation—summary of responses and example quotes

Time off to attend appointments

“I’m able to take a day or half a day of every week for when I need to make to [redacted] hospital. And yeah, there’s never been a question.”

“In terms of work, I think I feel like I have to do more appointments, you know, working with [retracted] and getting, like, monitored all the time. So that doesn’t just go with my work, getting time off for that, and explaining it to my, you know, [redacted].”

Ability to work/study

“It affects my daily life because, to start with, initially, I couldn’t walk and that is something that it was something very major for me at the beginning. I couldn’t go to work for many months.”

Difficult to get a job/be accepted at school

“To be honest, back home I didn’t work. I didn’t have too many jobs. Maybe back home was a little bit hard, and I struggled. But here, no.”

Interviewer: And can you tell me a bit more about back home? What are the problems there?

“To be honest, there, if you work in hospitality service– like waitress and this kind of stuff, or in the kitchen– they do some blood tests a lot. And with a hepatitis B– I don’t know how shall I tell you? They don’t like it too much. I don’t know. Maybe that mentality of the communist period of time. I don’t know, to be honest. Even in a hospital if you find a job, it’s the same. You need to be very healthy and stuff like that.”

Interviewer: Okay. So, very different here, it sounds like, in that way?

“Yes. When I came to [redacted], I find it very different way. At the beginning, I was worried because all– I said, okay. But, then, they said, no. You can do this job. You can do this one. Don’t worry. You are fine.”

Fear of losing job

“Before you can be a registered manager to own a care agency, there was a particular […] form that I had to send to Care Quality Commission and that piece form actually asks specifically if you have hepatitis B. When I saw it, before I fill up my form it took me almost two weeks before I could complete that little piece. What should I say? And then, at that point in time, because I was worried that they won’t register me to be the without being register to be a registered manager, I can’t own a care agency. I then begin to search for options of looking to employ somebody for that position. And then my biggest worry then becomes not having enough funds to do so, so I don’t know how to move on those to do it. And at some point it was like, ‘You know what? What will be will be.’ I should just tell the truth, right? Because I’m not willing to lie about that because I don’t know what would come up after. Then pen it down. I just say, ‘Yeah. I do have hepatitis B.’ And then I attached the notes that how I’m managing, I clear the space for myself, I’m going to be having my own office, and things like that. And then yeah, they didn’t even query, so I got register as registered manager. That went a very long way for me of that was a big concern for me in reference to my job at that point in time.”