the aim of the study was sent to all the nurses. Each interview lasted 0.45 1.5 h. The initial question was the same in all interviews and was as follows: ‘‘Can you describe how the ICU transitional care process is conducted and your feelings regarding it?’’ Follow-up questions were asked during the interview concerning the care before, during, and after the transfer of a patient from ICU to the general ward. Data analysis All interviews were transcribed into written text. Analysis was started immediately after the first interview and continued simultaneously. The overall coding process was made by open coding, line by line, and incident by incident followed by selective coding, focused coding, and theoretical coding. Open coding Open coding is the initial step of theoretical analysis that pertains to the discovery of categories and their properties. During the open coding, data was broken down into incidents and closely examined for similarity and differences (Glaser, 1992). The first author performed the coding process; the author made handwritten codes in the margin that sought activity in the data, trying to ‘‘run the data open,’’ and questioning ‘‘What is this data a study of?’’ The initial codes were sharpened to obtain the best fit, and when the categories emerged, they were named depending on their meaning and also renamed to obtain the best fit. The categories emerged from the following question: ‘‘What category or property of category does this incident indicate?’’ The number of categories was also reduced as they were renamed. The emerging codes, categories, and properties were all compared with other data to explore variations, similarities, and differences in data. Finally, we asked the following question: ‘‘What is really going on in the data?’’ We tried to raise the analysis to an abstract level. The questions used for the constant analysis originated from Glaser’s de- scription of data analysis (Glaser, 1978). The authors wrote and compared memos comprising their associations, reflections, and ideas after each interview. Theoretical saturation was fulfilled when new data did not add new information to the theory (Hallberg, 2006). Focused selective coding The open coding ended when the core category appeared (Glaser, 1992). The core category an- swered the following question: ‘‘What was the main Struggle with a gap between ICUs and general wards 183 problem for the ICU nurses and the ward nurses?’’ Finally, the data analysis resulted in one core category; the main concern for the nurses was ‘‘struggling with a gap.’’ The theory was delimited to the core category. Three categories emerged which were related to the core category. The core category became a guide for further questioning (Glaser, 1978). In our study, the follow-up questions in the last five interviews had been theoretically sampled after the core category emerged. Theoretical coding The third step of the analysis, theoretical coding, has been a way to conceptualise how categories and substantive codes may relate to each other as a hypotheses to be transformed into a theory (Glaser, 1978). We examined the categories thoroughly and found relationships between the categories, and connections between the core category and the other categories. Table II shows the categories and how they are grounded in the data. Ethical considerations Ethical permission from the northern ethical board was obtained for the study (D- number 07 159). However, in this study, no medical records were used, and no patients participated. Before every interview, the participants were verbally informed and given written material stating the purpose of the study, that the data would be handled con- fidently, and that they had the right to withdraw at any time. Written consent was obtained from the head of the clinic. The nurses expressed their feelings that the topic was important for their professional work, and, therefore, they felt free and willing to be part of the study. Findings The core category and the main concern for nurses in the ICU transitional were their struggling with a gap in care between the ICU and the ward. The gap was caused by differences in the altered level of care and contributed to difficulties for the nurses in the overlap in the ICU transitional care process. These differences were seen in the nurses’ competence, focus, and environment. The three other categories were related to the core category, and generated a theory describing the main con- cern for nurses involved in ICU transitional care and how the nurses handle the problem (see Figure 1). According to the nurses they were sheltering and seeking organizational intertwining and were also striving for control over the situations