The field observations were direct (no time delay between occurrence and registration) and theory-building with a low level of structure for data gathering. The lead author visited the patients’ homes frequently over a period of time and participated in small talk to become familiar with the informants, but did not become involved in care situations. The focus of the observations were care situations and patient-health care assistant interactions. The aim of constructing a theoretical model guided the structure of the observations in such a way that the first observations were very open, but they became more focused once theoretical categories and processes had been created. In addition to direct observation notes, field notes were written immediately after the observation.
The authenticity was judged against two criteria: 1) whether a situation would occur irrespective of the researcher’s participation (researcher perspective), and 2) whether the interaction between individuals would exist irrespective of the participants’ awareness of the observation (participant perspective)