Table 3.

Steps in data analysis (Elo and Kyngas, 2008).

Preparation phase	The material was read through individually by all authors to provide a sense of the whole. The first author then highlighted text that appeared to elucidate the participants’ experiences, as being the units of analysis.
Organizing phase
Open coding	Keywords or phrases from the highlighted text were written in the margin to describe all aspects of its content.
Coding sheets	The keywords and phrases were collected from the margin on coding sheets.
Grouping	The codes were sorted into sub-categories based on the first and third authors’ joint decision through interpretation of how the different codes were related and linked to each other. Each sub-category was named after its content and the list was verified by the second author.
Categorization	The different sub-categories were discussed and compared and those with similar content were grouped together under generic categories. These were then organized under main categories.
Abstraction	Finally, a theme was agreed upon connecting the text as a whole, the content of the categories and the interpretation of the latent meaning of the text.