Table 2 Thematic analysis

Stage 1

Repeatedly read each transcript, as a whole

Obtain a global picture of the interview and become familiar with the interviewee’s verbal style and vocabulary.

Each new reading of the transcript might also provide new perspectives.

Stage 2

Code the transcript by making notes corresponding to the fundamental units of meanings.

Pay particular attention to linguistic details and the vocabulary used by the participant, for instance when he/she uses a metaphor to explain or name a phenomenon, in order to make inductive descriptive notes using the participant’s own words.

Stage 3

Make conceptual notes through processes of condensation, abstraction, and comparison of the initial notes.

Categorize initial notes and reach a higher level of abstraction.

Stage 4

Identify initial themes.

Provide text quotes that illustrate the main ideas of each theme.

Themes are labels that summarize the essence of a number of related conceptual notes. They are used to capture the experience of the phenomenon under study.

Stage 5

Identify recurrent themes across transcripts and produce a coherent ordered table of the themes and sub-themes.

Move from the particular to the shared across multiple experiences. Recurrent themes reflect a shared understanding of the phenomena among all participants.

During this more analytic stage, researchers try to make sense of the associations between the themes found.