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Table 2 Key elements of the Realist analysis process

From: Social prescribing for people with complex needs: a realist evaluation

The realist methodology uses the following approaches judiciously and in combination:

• Organizing and collating primary data and producing preliminary thematic summaries of these

• Repeated writing and rewriting of fragments of the case study

• Presenting, defending, and negotiating particular interpretations of actions and events both within the research team and also to the stakeholders themselves

• Testing these interpretations by explicitly seeking disconfirming or contradictory data

• Considering other interpretations that might account for the same findings

• Using cross-case comparisons to determine how the same or submechanism plays out in different contexts and produces different outcomes, thereby allowing inferences about the generative causality of different contexts

From Greenhalgh, T., Humphrey, C., MacFarlane, F., Bulter, C., & Pawson, R. (2009)