Table 2.
Phases of the Thematic Analysis and steps followed in the analysis of the information
| Phase 1: Becoming familiar with the data | The first phase consists of transcribing, without delay, the verbatim interventions of the participants, the researcher’s interventions, and a set of notes in which an attempt is made to reflect various aspects. The job of transcribing was shared between the researchers, with each researcher being responsible for transcribing the interviews in which he/she was not present. All the investigators read, and reread, all the transcripts. |
| Phase 2: Generating initial codes | The subject matter was established and the information from all the fragments of each interview was categorised in codes or blocks of interest, extracting basic concepts that emerged. Initially, each researcher tries to extract their own codes. Although analysis software could be used, we prefer to carry out this process manually which, although there is a lower level of automation, makes for a more personalised and richer interpretation (Braun & Clarke, 2012; Belotto, 2018) |
| Phase 3: Identifying ideas | In this phase, the aim is to find common ideas, combine codes and, at the same time, verify that the perceptions of the different researchers are coherent, reducing dissonances and reinforcing the results. The categories and codes are provisional, and are constantly being reviewed (eliminating some, merging others, proposing new ones …) until completion of the analysis. |
| Phase 4: Reviewing themes | In this phase, we try to refine the ideas obtained in the previous phase and, in turn, attempt to map out conceptually the most important latent and recurring themes that would be consistent with the approach of the interviews and the data set obtained. |
| Phase 5: Defining and naming themes | This phase focuses on giving meaning to each theme, establishing logical connections between the defined categories, and trying to reduce interferences between them. This is a complex step since, in many cases, the contents are closely linked, making it difficult to design a final map that is easy to understand but, at the same time, faithful to the data obtained (see Figure 1). |
| Phase 6: Producing the report | Once all the previous steps have been carried out, the next step is to describe the scenario behind each theme in a faithful way, reinforcing and enriching it with representative textual quotes extracted from the interviews. The result of this last phase is presented in section 5 of this paper. |