A Method for Developing Trustworthiness and Preserving Richness of Qualitative Data During Team-Based Analysis of Large Data Sets

This article outlines a three-phase, team-based approach used to analyze qualitative data from a nation-wide needs assessment of access to Veteran Health Administration services for rural-dwelling veterans. The method described here was used to develop the trustworthiness of findings from analysis of a large qualitative data set, without the use of analytic software. In Phase 1, we used templates to summarize content from 205 individual semistructured interviews. During Phase 2, a matrix display was constructed for each of 10 project sites to synthesize and display template content by participant, domain, and category. In the final phase, the summary tabulation technique was developed by a member of our team to facilitate trustworthy observations regarding patterns and variation in the large volume of qualitative data produced by the interviews. This accessible and efficient team-based strategy was feasible within the constraints of our project while preserving the richness of qualitative data.