Fig. 1
Thematic map of patient experiences across the care continuum
The figure illustrates the main themes and subthemes that emerged from the analysis, organized along three stages of the patient journey: pre-diagnosis, diagnosis, and post-diagnosis. Themes include lifestyle and risk factors, awareness and family history, signs and symptoms, delays in diagnosis, the impact of age and gender on care, biomarker testing, psychological and peer support, physical consequences, and access to age-appropriate services. Each theme is positioned according to the stage at which it was most commonly discussed by participants, though several themes (e.g., psychological support) were crosscutting. This figure reflects aggregated themes across all countries. Country-specific differences are discussed in Sect. "Country comparison"