Objective: To explore social network analysis (SNA) as an additional approach to elucidate quantifiable insight from qualitative health-related textual data.
Methods: Key concepts gained from thematic analyses of a set of qualitative health data obtained from an implementation study was analysed using the Excel Add-on module NodeXL.
Results: Our results show that SNA provided useful visualisation and quantifiable information of the relationship between key concepts obtained from the thematic analysis.
Discussion: SNA is a useful technique for exploring and analysing qualitative data, particularly when the research interest is in complex relationships that may exist among a large number of qualitative variables. In addition to providing a way to visualise the relationship between concepts, SNA provides metric measures that can be further analysed quantitatively.
Conclusion: The SNA approach allows researchers to explore deeper relationships that may exist among various variables and enable researchers to derive potentially a fuller and more complete appreciation and comprehension of health-related data.
Keywords: Social Network Analysis; implementation study; qualitative data.