Table 2.

Data analysis phases and actions taken during each phase in the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

Analysis phase	Actions taken	Outcome of action
Phase 1: An idiographic analysis of each interview	Each transcript was analysed separately by grouping codes into clusters to form participant specific emergent themes. Phenomenological coding involved identifying participants' experiential claims and objects of concern (what mattered to them; e.g. relationships, events, values). Interpretative coding encompassed questioning, speculating, and developing ideas about the meaning of these for participants.	Sets of themes that represent the experiences of each participant separately.
Phase 2: An analysis of data across the entire dataset	Emergent themes were produced for the dataset as a whole by searching for relations, associations, and patterns, as well as conflict, tensions, and contradictions between participants' accounts. Superordinate themes were then developed for all data collected by considering: abstraction; subsumption; polarisation; contextualisation; numeration; and function. Core concepts for each shared superordinate theme were then generated.	Sets of themes that represent the entire dataset.
Phase 3: Integration of analysis	The richness, text, and texture of the individual experience was retained and embedded in more abstract theoretical articulations in order to come to possibilities of understanding for the dataset as a whole. Consideration was given to how themes and core concepts related to each other and a conceptualisation of Meaning in Life that synergised these was developed.	A nuanced multi-layered interpretative narrative of all participants' experiences, context, and meaning-making activities.