This approach is the most commonly used in qualitative analysis, because it is a simple, less time-consuming and flexible approach. In fact, this approach can be used with many kinds of qualitative data, and with many goals in mind. For that reason, thematic analysis is often implicitly and explicitly a part of other approaches of data analysis including grounded theory, narrative analysis and IPA. Researchers often use thematic analysis as a first step to look for broader patterns in their work in order to then conduct a more fine grained analysis using alternative approaches, if necessary.