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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Nov 1.
Published in final edited form as: Cancer Nurs. 2012 Nov-Dec;35(6):493–504. doi: 10.1097/NCC.0b013e31824530fa

Table 2.

Process of Hermeneutic Interpretation

Stagea Process
1 Examine each original text (interview) to gain overall understanding.
2 Identify common themes from text to support interpretation of meaning.
3 Meet collectively as a research team to compare interpretations for similarities and differences, returning to text for clarification and further interpretation.
4 Reread all original text to link themes and determine exemplar quotations.
5 Develop constitutive pattern demonstrating interrelationship of themes across text.
6 Validate findings by sharing results with participants and comparing with literature.
7 Produce final manuscript with practical implications to be disseminated and validated by reader.
a

Although listed in a stepwise manner for ease of understanding, this process is dynamic, and often steps are addressed nonlinearly.27,28