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Table 2 Steps of data analysis (Creswell [26])

From: Talking about death and dying in a hospital setting - a qualitative study of the wishes for end-of-life conversations from the perspective of patients and spouses

Managing and organizing data

The transcripts of the interviews were printed for each participant and the data was stored securely in a locked room. The analysis mode was chosen, and was first done by hand and secondly entered in a Word document.

Reading and memoing emergent ideas

All transcripts were read several times by the first author in order to obtain a sense of the interview as a whole. Initial thought and codes were written in the margins of the transcripts.

Describing and classifying codes into themes

A search for patterns was initiated. The initial codes were named and classified into themes, and were related to the phenomena of interest (research question). This was done by focusing on both unique and recurring themes across the interviews.

Developing and assessing interpretations

The meaning of each interview/story was identified, and even though each interview was unique there were themes which recurred. The codes were interpreted and discussed by the authors.

Representing and visualizing the data

The meaning of the interviews was presented, and is represented in the findings section. Excerpts will be presented in this section to illustrate the themes and to allow the reader to judge transferability.