2.3 | Data analysis
All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim into mandarin
Chinese. A phenomenological approach was adopted and inductive thematic
analysis utilized to analyze the discourses produced by self-referral
patients with advanced kidney disease and health
professionals22. Nvivo 11 software was used to
facilitate and manage data23. Data were analyzed
following these steps: (1) Familiarizing with data, reading repeatedly
transcripts and notes to obtain rough understanding and preliminary
comment. (2) Generating initial codes, coding interesting features of
the data across the entire data set. (3) Searching for themes, collating
codes into potential themes. (4) Reviewing themes, checking if the
themes work in relation to transcripts. (5) Defining and naming themes,
ongoing analysis for refining each theme and overall story. When there
were differences in perspectives, all author negotiated and discussed
until agreement were reached. Two researchers (Xu S, Jiang XX) conducted
the initial data coding. The interviewer (Gao YJ) and the research
assistant (Li x) co-coded for themes. At least, the team discussed each
theme and came to a consensus.