05 FL Pérez-Jiménez.indd

ion. Open coding means that notes and headings are written in the text while reading it” (19, p. 109). Then, categories are created, grouped, collapsed, and organized in hierarchical order. Finally, the abstraction is related to formulate a general description of the research through the use of the categories. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed, and a codebook was developed to perform the qualitative content analysis. When data reflected associations or overlap, thematic categories were refined, merged, or subdivided. This process continued iteratively until thematic saturation was achieved and the organization of the conceptual coding framework was stabilized. A formal codebook was developed to include categories and illustrative texts. Next, transcripts were formally content coded. To ensure coding reliability, all data were independently rated using a double coding technique, which entailed that two persons observe and code the data independently, later meeting to reach consensus (22, 23). These two persons were graduate psychology students who were members of our research team. They had prior experience coding qualitative data and were retrained to guarantee they had the necessary knowledge and skills to perform the analysis. Interrater discrepancies were discussed and resolved. When consensus about the appropriate coding of a given text passage could not be attained, the disputed passage was excluded from further analyses. New categories that did not appear to fit into the conceptual framework were discussed by the research team and modifications made when appropriate. A taxonomy of key categories was assembled for each question of interest, and illustrative quotes relevant to these categories were extracted from the transcripts through the consensus of the two raters. Throughout the analytic process, decision trails were documented to assure that interpretations were supported by the data. All quotes from participants were translated from Spanish to English by a professional translator. NVivo 7 software (24) was used for data management and analysis.