Participants and sampling Participants were nurses specialized in providing chronic care to patients with a chronic condition.nurses were identified that variation in age,work setting,years of experience of nurses,and patient pipulation would provide a good starting point for initial sampling.all identified nurses filled out a short questionnaire in advance to facilitate purposeful selection. Three nurses in secondary care were directly asked to participate. Data collection and data analysis alternated.initially,a purposive sample of five nurse with a variation in characteristics was selected.subsequently,theoretical sampling was used,aimed at reapondents who could contribute to the evolving theory(charmaz,2006).to resch saturated categories,three additional primary care nurses were recruited-who worked with a diversity of patients with chronic diseases thus refining the categories and testing the model.finally,two nurses, who were experienced,specialized in one chronic disease and working in secondary care were included,because we expected them to be more experienced in self-management