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Contemporary Xurse (2003) 14: 292-302

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The purpose of this paper is to provide gUidance for novice researchers usina
Colaizzi's (1978) phenomenological method if data analysis. It <dJers personal
KuWoRris insights into how to present an auditable decision trail in a phenomenological

phenomenology;
research study and explores issues of rigour and trustworthiness. For the novice
Colaizzi; data -_ , researcher, it provides practical examples if how to illustrate tbt'pr~esses that
analysis; audit. can be employed to interpret and make sense if the resear!!, materia/"W
trail; rigour; writino a thesis or research report.
l
!~ I
.
. trustworthiness
Received 11 February 2003 Accepted 6 May 2003

thinking when first exposed to employing phe-

nomenological methods.
CAROLYN SANDERS
Academic Project
This paper will present my own personal
Manager experiences as a novice researcher using the
Division of Health phenomenological method devised by Colaizzi
Care Practice
Faculty of Health (1978). I will briefly discuss the importance of
Auckland University finding a methodological "fit" between the
of Technology
Auckland, New philosophical assumptions underpinning a
Zealand research approach, and the method of data
analysis chosen. Secondly I will discuss the
importance of promoting the rigour and trust-
worthiness of phenomenological data analysis.
INTRODUCTION Thirdly, and most importantly, a detailed
espite the plethora of phenomenological overview of each of Colaizzi's seven stages of
D nursing research studies that have been data analysis will be provided and their applica-
published in the last twenty years, few have tion to my personal research study discussed.
provided gUidance for novice researchers Issues of how to present an auditable decision
on how to undertake the process of data trail within a thesis will be discussed using
analysis and present an auditable decision trail examples drawn from my own study.
within a thesis or research report (Whiting. This paper draws upon examples from a
200 I). Munhall (1989) observes that novice descriptive phenomenological study under-
researchers often require guidance on "where pinned by the philosophy of Husserl (1960) to
to begin" and "how to do it" which frames illustrate some practical examples of how to

292 C:J( Volume 14, Issue 3, June 2003

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 Application of Colaizzi 's method: Interpretation of an auditable decision trail
'esent the process of data analysis. The pur-
lse of the research study was to exploTe,
:scribe and understand how nurses' personal
.iritual values and beliefs influenced their pro-
ssional experiences of caring for patients
:anders, 1996). A purposeful sampling tech-
que was used to identify 8 experienced nurses
orking in acute care areas in a large teaching
>spital in the United Kingdom (UK) who had
reet personal experience with the phenomena
~. interest and w"ere willing to share their expe-
coces. The study was based on unstructured
,dividual interviews which yielded a wealth of
lla.
\ WORD ABOUT
'HENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD
'he aim of phenomenology is to produce a
escription of a phenomenon of everyday expe-
ience, in order to understand its essential
:ructure. Husserl's phenomenology is eidetic
r descriptive, whereby individuals are seen as
le vehicle through which the essential struc-
Jrc or "essence" of the phenomenon of interest
an be accessed and subsequently described. If
;le appearance of essential structures can be
escribed, then it is possible to arrive at cer-
linty or ultimate truth (Solomon and Higgins,
996).
It is not the intention of this paper to argue
he relative merits and drawbacks of using
lusserl's descriptive phenomenology, although
_is important to recognise that there is consid-
rable debate amongst academics regarding its
nisuse in nursing research (Crotty, 1996;
:och, 1995; Paley, 1997;Yegdich, 1999). It is
mportant, however, for novice researchers to
'e clear about their particular ontological ori-
ntation based on their philosophical under-
tanding of phenomenology, as this will
nfluence the way in which a research study will
le conducted.
Whilst is it true that phenomenologists are
ometimes reluctant to focus on specific steps
n the data generation and analysis process,
C:J(
many have devised methods that may be fol-
lowed in a systematic fashion (Van Kaam, 1966;
Giorgi, 1970; Colaizzi, 1978; Van Manen,
1984). It is important therefore for novice
researchers to ensure that they demonstrate the
methodological "fit" of their chosen framework
with the philosophical assumptions underpin-
ning the particular research approach selected.
DEMONSTRATING RIGOUR AND
TRUSTWORTHINESS IN
PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
In considering rigour in phenomenological
research, as with any qualitative research, there
is a need to determine whether the study is
believable, accurate, and right, and whether it is
useful to people beyond those who have partici-
pated in the study. The ability to describe and
demonstrate a clear audit trail of decisions
taken during the data collection and analysis
process and the researcher's role, thoughts,
feelings and reflections help to promote the
credibility of a study. Koch (1994: 978) sup-
ports this by stating:
"A decision trail provides a means for the
researcher to establish audit trail linkages.
Leaving a decision trail entails discussing
explicitly decisions taken about the theoreti-
cal, methodological and analytical choices
throughout the study".
Here I present some methods for promoting
the trustworthiness, reliability and generalis-
ability of phenomenological research for the
novice. My own study contained elements of all
of the proposed criteria outlined below, and
further examples are woven into my discussion
of the application of Colaizzi's method of data
analysis presented later in the paper.
Methods for increasing the trustworthiness
of the interpretations of data can include:
Making explicit presupposition and
acknowledging subjective judgements
(Ashworth, 1997)
Volume 14, Issue 3, June 2003 C:J!( 293
C:J'( Carolyn Saunders
Prolonged engagement with the data
(Erlandson et ai, 1993; Lincoln and Guba,
1985)
• Verification with the source/participant
feedback Uohnson, 1997)
• Using extracts from participants' verbatim
accounts Uohnson, 1997)
Peer debriefing, whereby ongoing analysis
and findings are regularly presented to
others for peer evaluation (Robson, 1993)
Strategies to increase the reliability of the pro-
cedures and data generated can include:
Providing evidence of an audit trail (Koch,
1994)
•. Disclosing personal orientation and con-
text (Ashworth, 1997; Stiles, 1993)
Having intensive engagement with the.
material and iteration between data and
interpretation (Erlandson et aI, 1993;
Stiles, 1993)
Grounding interpretations within the data
through the use of verbatim illustration
(Johnson, 1997)
Ensuring technical accuracy in recording
and transcribing (Perakyla, 1997)
Generalisability is the extent to which findings
are transferable to, or fitting for, other situa-
tions (Con way, 1998). Phenomenological
research, as with other qualitative methods, is
generally considered weak in its generalisability
across populations, to different settings and
across times (Johnson, t 997) i particularly as
participants are often selected purposivcly in
order to fulfill the needs of a particular study.
However, it has been suggested that the concept
of generalization should be reclaimed for quali-
tative inquiry (Sandelowski, 1996), and that it
need not be a problem if comparisons are made
with similar people, settings and times (John-
son, 1997). Therefore it is important in the
written account of the study to provide detailed
information regarding participants, selection
methods, context and data generation and
294 C:J( Volume 14, Issue 3, J~ne 2003
analysis methods in order for readers to decide
how far and to whom the findings may be gen-
eralized.
ApPLICATION OF COLAIZZI'S
PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD
From a novice researcher's perspective, a struc-
tured framework assists with the complex
analysis of phenomenological data which can
often be overwhelming. When writing a thesis it
is important to demonstrate how each stage of
the framework has been applied to the analysis
of research data, and to discuss the processes
that have been employed to interpret and make
sense of the research material. This helps the
researcher to convey the story in such a way
that another person can share the understand-
ings gained, and show the reader the way in
which the interpretations have been made
(Koch, 1999).
Here I outline some examples of how I have
applied Colaizzi's (1978) framework to the
analysis of data from the phenomenological
exploration of spirituality and share some of the
ways in which I presented my interpretations
within my thesis.
Stage 1
"Acquiring a Sense of Each
Transcript" (Colaizzi, 1978)
In the study of nurses' spirituality, I conducted
each of the interviews personally, which helped
to gain a sense of the whole experience of each
participant. Colaizz; (1978) advocates that the
researcher should read the participants' narra-
tives to acquire a feeling for their ideas in order
to understand them, and Haase and Myers
(1988) suggest listening to the audio tapes sev-
eral times.
To gain a sense of each participant's descrip-
tion of their lived experience of spirituality, I
initially listened to each audiotape four times
 Application of Colaizzi's 'method: Interpretation of an auditable decision trail
.nd read each transcript on six occasions. All
houghts, feelings and ideas that crept into my
lead during this stage were written in my diary
o assist with the bracketing and reflective
)TOCess.I felt that it was important to involve
he participants at this stage of the analytical
)TOCess. I asked them to validate their experi-
:nces by sending them a copy of the transcript
.vith a comments sheet to return if they felt
.hey wished to add anything. The feedback'
lemonstrated that all of the participants felt
:hat their transcript accurately represented
what was said during the interview and -was
true to their experience of spirituality.
Step 2
"Extracting Significant
Statements" (Colaizzi, 1978)
I then moved into a phase of reading and re-
reading the transcripts to identify and highlight
the participants' experiences of spirituality.
Colaizzi (1978) suggests that you should extract
significant phrases and statements from the
transcripts that together form the whole mean-
ing of the experience of spirituality. I analysed
each transcript to identify statements that told
each participant's story of their lived experi-
ence. These statements were highlighted on
each page of every transcript, using a luminous
pen. Wertz (1983, cited in Whiting, 2001: 65)
has suggested that by doing this, the researcher
is able to pay attention to what is being
said and the manner in which it was iterated,
"empathetically dwellina" with the participants'
experiences.
Each statement was then cut from the appro-
priate transcript and pasted on to a separate
sheet retaining the transcript, page and line
number. Once I had accomplished this, it was
possible to re-read with a new sense of open-
ness to the data, and to identify early themes
that were emerging in the data.
Although there are a number of computer
programmes that novice researchers can utilize
C:J'{
for data analysis purposes, these can be time
consuming and in this instance I chose to
analyse and extract the significant statements
manually. Manual transcription and analysis
facilitated my continued immersion in the data,
and thoughts and feelings that arose during this
stage were incorporated into my reflective
diary and later utilized in describing how I
made some of my interpretive decisions.
From the eight transcripts, 374 significant
statements were distilled and these were
returned to my research supervisor and panel
of experts who found the process to have
ensured rigour throughout. They cross-checked
the distilled statements with the transcripts and
agreed on the final list which promoted clarity
of the interpretive processes that I was using.
Although many might think that this is an.
unnecessary and overly-systematic approach
to phenomenological analysis, for a novice
researcher it provides guidance at each stage of
the analytical process, and ensures that they are
accurately adhering to the intentions of the
methods used.
In writing up my thesis I provided examples
of how I identified and extracted significant
statements from the interview transcripts.
Excerpts were presented in table format within
the text of the thesis and full listings of the
extracted statements for all transcripts were
provided in an appendix. Table 1 illustrates
some of the statements highlighted extracted
from the interview conducted with one partici·
pant (Bill). Some examples of these are provid-
ed here:
"spirituality is the essence of the person, the
actual core, your beliefs, feeling, emotions
to people around you and events around
you ..how you react and respond to those"
"we often express it(spirituality) as a reli-
gious thing often but . .! don't think it neces-
sarily is a religiOUS thing"
This stage of the analysis proved to be
Volume 14,Issue 3, June 2003 C:J'{ 295
C:J'( Carolyn Saunders

TABLE 1: EXAMPLE OF How SIGNIFICANT STATEMENTS WeRE IOENTIFIED AND EXTRACTED FROM BilL'S
INTERVIEW (TRANSCRIPT 4, PAGE 1, LINES 2-10)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Urn ... ! sort oJbelieve that spiritugIit.r is the essence 9/the person .. the actual core urn .. your
beliefs feeling.s emotions to people ground you and.. and events argund vou .. how.,You
reactoorespond to those urn .. urn ..it's not .. it's not a reliaious.. weJI..! think we olten express it as a
relig.ious thing often but.. I don't think it necessaril, is a religious thinn .. urn .. really that
uh .. how.. f'm probably repeating myself here (no you're alright) .. how you.. how you interact with
people.. howlour.. how things aifectyou and how,YOu deal with people and.. not just people but
urn ..your beliifs and.,Your desires your ooals and.. thinSs,You strivefor"lour strengths (yes)
and Jour weaknesses urn .. and like I sa)' it's often expressed as a reJio;ous thinO but.. it is,,;t ;s
and it isn't

lengthy in terms of time commitment. Once
the significant statements had been extracted, I
felt that it was essential to leave them alone for
a few days, avoiding as far as possible. thinking
about them. I felt that this achieved freshness in
my approach when I returned to them. It also
facilitated the process of phenomenological
reduction.
Step 3
"Formulation of Meanings"
(Colaizzi, 1978)
In this stage of analysis, Colaizzi (1978) recom-
mends that the researcher attempts to formu-
late more general restatements or meanings for
each significant statement distilled from the
text. Ashworth and Hagan (1993) emphasize
the need at this stage to acknowledge any pre-
suppositions, as this will help avoid misinter-
pretation of the participants' views. An essential
and initial aspect of data analysis is phenomeno-
logical reduction or "bracketing". According to
Husscrl (1960) and Colaizzi (1978) bracketing
is essential, since it is only once this has been
accom plished that more specific investigations
can begin. It was therefore important for me to
formally state my experiences and this
undoubtedly helped me to be aware of my pre-
suppositions.
For the purpose of my study bracketing was
achieved by keeping a reflective diary to: (i)
enable me to explore my own assumptions and
preconceptions, in order to set them aside
rather than concealing them; (H) enable explo-
ration of ideas, themes, thoughts and feelings
throughout the data analysis process; (iii) enable
me to focus the direction of my thinking. This
was particularly important since intuition, and
reflexivity are central to achieving a common
understanding of the phenomenon. I incorpo-
rated excerpts from my reflective diary into my
thesis to illustrate thoughts and feelings that
occurred during the interpretive process. My
diary and interview field notes became objects
of reflection and were central to my data analy-
sis. My own subjectivity became an analytic tool
and was built into the research not only becom-
ing a source of data, but additionally, the use of
self as a tool assisted me to empathise and build
relationships with study participants (Holloway
and Wheeler, 1996).
Once presuppositions had been stated and
laid aside (as far as was possible) I moved into

296 C:J'( Volume 14. Issue 3.june 2003

 Application of Colaizzi 's method: Interpretation of an auditable decision trail
questioning the material which emerged during
the second stage of analysis. Each significant
statement relating to the description and expe-
rience of spirituality was studied very carefully
to determine a sense of its meaning. The funda-
mental questions I asked myself here was "What
is the meaning of spirituality?" and "What does
this tell me about spirituality?". Formulated
meanings were developed, taking into account
the statement preceding and following each sig-
nificant statement, which were recorded to
ensure that the contextual meaning was not lost
(Haase and Myers, 1988). The example provid-
ed below, demonstrates how a participant's
personal definition of spirituality can be formu-
lated into a more explicit meaning associated
with the phenomenon:
Bill identified that for him spirituality
"means something to do with the soul it's sort of a
person's inner beino"
TABLE 2: PROCESS OF CREATING FORMULATED MEANINGS FROM SIGNIFICANT STATEMENTS
Significant Statements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It means something to do with the soul it's sol't of a The soul is the source of a person's spirituality
person's inner being
It's like inside me and I haven't even started to
articulate it properly
Somewhere inside me I have the ability to do
anything I want to do
We often just aim for the religious side of things
and don't really take into account their spirituality
and their beliefs
My personal ideals of spirituality and the existence
or not of the soul are completely unique.. 1 can't
impose those on anybody
It's were your emotional and moral being is..how
you make decisions, why you make decisions, how
you feel and think about things
When you come to do last rites the person is no
longer there and that made it easier for me to carry
out the duties that are expected of me
C:;y
When studied carefully the formulated meaning
or restatement of the experience of the phe-
nomenon is:
The soul is the source of a person's spiritu-
ality
I presented the interpretive process of formu·
lating meanings for each significant statement
extracted when writing up my thesis, and dis-
cussed the decision-making processes that guid-
ed my interpretation. A full list of formulated
meanings was provided in an appendix of the
thesis and a table of excerpts presented in the
text as a focus for discussion. Table 2 provides
some examples of how Significant statements
were interpreted into more general formulated
meanings to describe the phenomenon of spiri-
tuality.
As I had done in stage 2, I returned the
original transcripts, significant statements and
Formulated Meanings
Spirituality is an integral part of a person's inner
being which is difficult to articulate to others
Spirituality provides a person with inner strength
and confidence in themselves
Nurses often place more importance on religion
than the spiritual needs and beliefs of patients
Spirituality is unique to an individual's own values
and beliefs
Spirituality is an integral part of a person's sentient
being, behaviour and reactions to the world around
them
A nurse's personal beliefs about the perpetuation
of the spirit at the point of death enables them to
cope with the duties expected of them
Volume 14, Issue 3, June 2003 C:JII 297
C:JtI Carolyn Saunders
my research
., ..MlIl-jolted formulated meanings to
''' lI llt'l·visor
and panel of experts to enable them
tll ddcrmine whether my interpretive proce,ss-
," were clear and auditable. This led to agree-
I1U'l1t and confirmation of the formulated
1111"lnings with minimal changes:
Step 4
"Organising formulated meanings
into clusters of themes" (Colaizzi,
1978)
Once I had formulated meanings for all of the
significant statements extracted, I started to
arrange the formulated meanings into clusters
of themes (Colaizzi, 1978). For the description
of spirituality, 374 formulated meanings were
arranged into 54 theme clusters which were
then collapsed into 11 emergent themes of the
phenomenon of spirituality (Table 3). The 11
emergent themes were common to all partici-
pants' descriptions of their experience of spiri-
tuality.
When writing my thesis it was important to
demonstrate with clarity, how I arrived at my
interpretive decisions and what led me to dus-
ter the data into the emergent themes. I provid-
ed examples of the emergence ~f themes in
tables within the text and then discussed the
TABLE 3: EMERGENT THEMES FOR THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION IN NURSING
Inner State of Being
Interconnectedness with the World
Interconneetedness with Nature
Personal Growth
Relationships with Significant Others
Interconnectedness With and Faith in a Higher Power
Relationship Between Spirituality and Religion
Developing Spiritually as a Nurse
Spiritual Experiences with the Dying
Providing Spiritual care
Barriers to Spiritual Care Provision
298 C::J( Volume 14, Issue 3, June 2003
interpretive process alongside these working
examples.
For the purpose of this paper, an example of
the interpretive process is illustrated for the
emergence of the category "Developing Spiri-
tually as a Nurse" in Table 4. Numbered formu-
lated meanings (corresponding to the code for
the significant statement extracted from each
transcript) were clustered together into com-
mon units of meaning which gave rise to three
theme clusters (i) Awareness of personal spiri-
tual values and beliefs enable the nurse to view
spirituality as a dimension of nursing
practice;(ii) Nursing experiences facilitate
awareness growth and development of the
nurse's own personal spiritual beliefs and val-
ues; (iii) Registered nurses can help to promote
spiritual awareness in students by acting as role
models in spiritual care provision. These theme
clusters were then collapsed into the emergent
theme of Developing Spiritually as a Nurse.
This process was used for all 1 I emergent
themes.
I again returned to my research supervisor
and panel of experts to examine the relation-
ship between formulated meanings, theme clus-
ters, and emergent themes to ensure that the
interpretive process was clear and accurately
described.
 Application of Colaizzi's method: Interpretation of an auditable decision trail
TABLE 4: ILLUSTRATING THE EMERGENCE OF
MEANINGS
FORMULATED MEANINGS
12. Individual values influence a nurse's
provision of patient care 22. The tenets of
caring for patients are influenced by the
nurse's personal values 221. A nurse's own
personal spiritual values and beliefs can be
reflected in providing spiritual care for patients
344. A person's spiritual values and beliefs are
. lived out in their nursing practice 354. Nurses
are able to provide quality spiritual care when
they are aware of their own spiritual values and
beliefs 3S5. Nurses are able to provide quality
spiritual care when they are aware of their own
spiritual values and beliefs 362. Nurses ability
to recognise spiritual concerns of patients is
influenced by their own values and belief
84. Nursing can provide enlightenment into
the human condition 85. Nurses sometimes
compare their faith with that of patients 123.
An understanding of one's own spirituality can
be gained through experience in nursing
patients 159. Experiences in nu~sing place the
nurse in touch with the intimate side of
patients' needs 205. A person can become
more aware of their spirituality through their
nursing experiences 358. Nurses find it
difficult to articulate how they live out their
own spirituality in nursing practice
122. Registered nurses act as role models for
students involved in spiritual care provision
124. Registered nurses act as role models for
students involved in spiritual care provision
Step 5
"Exhaustively describing the
investigated phenomenon"
(Colaizzi, 1978)
In the fifth stage of analysis, Colaizzi (1978)
advocates that the researcher should integrate
all the resulting ideas into an exhaustive
description of the phenomenon. In relation to
my own research study, the exhaustive descrip-
tion was presented as a narrative account, and
contained all the dimensions of the lived expe-
rience of spirituality from a personal and pro-
C:J'{
A THEMES FROM THEME CLUSTERS AND FORMULATED
EMERGENT
THEME CLUSTER THEME
Awareness of personal spiritual DEVELOPING
values and beliefs enable the SPIRITUALLY AS A
nurse to view spirituality as a NURSE
dimension of nursing practice
Nursing experiences facilitate
awareness growth and
development of the nurse's own
personal spiritual beliefs and
values
Registered nurses can help to
promote spiritual awareness in
students by acting as role models
in spiritual care provision
fessional perspective for the participants inter-
viewed. This was achieved by incorporating the
emergent themes, theme clusters and formulat·
ed meanings into the description to create its
overall structure, and ensure that it contained
all of the elements of the experience.
The exhaustive description was then
returned to my research supervisor and panel
of experts for validation, the feedback being
that whilst it was rather long, the first section
did not mention nurses' personal perceptions
and experiences of the spiritual dimension but
rather that of "the person/individual". This
Volume 14,Issue 3, June 2003 C:J'{ 299

C:JI( Carolyn Saunders
feedback led to a slight modification of the
exhaustive description and I wrote about the
interpretive processes within my thesis. As it
was such a lengthy description, it was not possi.
ble to incorporate it into the body of the thesis,
so I made the decision to include it in an appen-
dix. It was approximately 10 pages long.
Step 6
"Describing the fundamental
structure of the phenomenon"
(Colaizzi, 1978)
Given the length of the exhaustive description,
Colaizzi (1978) advocates that it should be
reduced to an essential structure. He describes
this as an unequivocal statement of identifica-
tion of fundamental structure of the phenome-
non. Haase and Myers (1988) suggest that it
should include a description of the processes
and meanings derived through the previous
steps of analysis. For the purpose of this paper, I
present the fundamental structure here in ital-
ics, so that the reader can gain a sense of the
outcome of using Colaizzi's (1978) method of
analysis. This was also presented in the body of
my thesis and discussed in relation to the inter-
pretive processes used to arrive at this essential
structure of the phenomenon of spirituality.
The lived experience of the spiritual dimen-
sion in nursing is comprised of a nurse's own
personal spiritual values and beliefs and their
professional experiences of caring for
patients. The nurse's personal perceptions of
spirituality is that it is a unique combination
of their inner creativity, values, beliefs and
feelings, reactions to people and to events
and the world around them. Their spirituali-
ty unites and transcends the physical and psy-
chological dimensions of the person and
creates a sense of personhood making them a
thinking, emotional and moral being. A
nurses spirituality is formed through rela-
tionships with significant others, the world
300 C:JI( Volume 14, Issue 3, June 2003
-----------
around them, and religious faith, values and
beliefs and creates a sense of harmonious
interconnectedness for the person, giving
definition to existence. It is a dynamic aspect
of the person which changes with life experi-
ences making them open to growth and
change in the present and future. A nurse's
spirituality provides them with a source of
inner strength and resources to cope with
life crises and gives them the confidence to.
search for fulfillment and purpose in life.
Through professional experiences in nurs~
ing, the nurse can live out their spirituality in
practice by being aware of their own person-
al spiritual and religious values and beliefs,
developing their spiritual awareness through
their caring experiences and relationships
with patients and colleagues, providing spiri-
tual care, and being aware of the barriers
which impede this process.
Nursing experiences facilitate awareness,
growth and development of the nurses own
spiritual beliefs and values. Being spiritual in
nursing involves sharing part of what the
nurse believes in with patients and treating
other people the way they would expect to
be treated themselves. Nursing experiences
prOVide enlightenment into the human con-
dition at all stages of life and death and
enable the nurse to value the patient as a
person. Nurses recognise the importance of
valuing patient's spiritual needs when they
are dying and beliefs about the perpetuation
of the spirit at the point of death helps them
to make sense of death and enables them to
cope with the duties expected of them.
Nurses can help patients to make sense of
the fear that illness and hospitalization cre-
ates by drawing on their own personal per-
ceptions, values and experiences. Creating a
trusting relationship with the patient and
their family through verbal and non-verbal
communication facilitates the expression of
spiritual concerns and enables the nurse to
pick up cues from the patient in order to
 Application of Colaizzi's method: Interpretation of an auditable decision trail
provide support, comfort and foster hope in
patients to help them find meaning and
strength in times of illness. Respect for a
patient's religious faith is an important
dimension of spiritual care provision which
the nurse fulfils through respecting personal
requests fOT prayer, access to a spiritual
counselor and provision of privacy, giving
the patient space and time to reflect on the
meaning of their illness/suffering. Support-
ing patient's relatives is an important aspect
of spiritual care provision, which enables
them to find meaning in personal crisis.
Spirituality is valued as being integral to
holistic patient care to be cared for through-
out a patient's life span. Lack of opportunity
for nurses to explore their own spirituality
as a dimension of the human being during
their training, ritualistic practices and lack of
preparation to fulfill a spiritual role in nurs-
ing are perceived as barriers to spiritual care
provision.
Step 7
"Returning to the Participants"
(Colaizzi, 1978)
Colaizzi (1978) suggests that the final validation
stage of data analysis should involve returning
to the participants for a further interview, to
elicit views on the essential structure of the
phenomenon to ensure that it represents their
experience. However, Holloway and Wheeler
(1996) encourage the researcher to take the
exhaustive description back to the participants
rather than the essential structure, because it
appears more recognizable for them to com-
ment upon and this ensures rigour.
As it was not geographically possible to re-
interview the study participants for this pur-
pose, a short questionnaire adapted from
Colaizzi's (1978) interview guide, was sent to
each participant with a copy of the exhaustive
description and a stamped addressed envelope
for ease of return. All of the participants
C:J'{
reported that they recognized what they read as
representing their lived experiences of spiritu-
ality. Their comments were presented in table
format in an appendix of the thesis.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of this paper has been to share my
reflections and experiences of analyzing phe-
nomenological data using Colaizzi's (1978)
method. Whilst there are a number of academic
debates raging regarding the use of phenome-
nology and its application in nursing, we must
not deter novice researchers from embarking
upon this type of research. Whilst data analysis
might seem complex and daunting, it is pOSSible
to follow a systematic framework of steps that
prOVide gUidance for novice researchers. I
would urge more academics, researchers and
students to publish and share their experiences
of data analysis. By doing so, we might learn
more about the pitfalls and highlights of differ-
ent approaches, and enhance our understanding
of phenomenology and its application in nurs-
ing, as well as enabling us to produce highly
credible research.
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