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necessary to study it within its context of occurrence using multiple data sources. The desirability of a case study approach lay in gaining an in-depth understanding from multiple stakeholder perspectives of the case, either through the actors (remote nurses), through those directly involved (Yin, 2009) as ‘key’ participants, stakeholders directly or indirectly knowledgeable of the case, or from physical artefacts. To understand and describe remote nurses’ mental healthcare delivery required interrogation of a range of key informants and stakeholders, including remote nurses, remote district managers and administrators, remote psychiatrists, recruiters, policymakers, academics specialising in remote issues of stress and violence, counsellors, mental health nurses, police, ambulance officers, GPs and Royal Flying Doctor Service personnel. In addition, documents such as policies, images, journals, plans and submissions were examined as data sources (Yin, 2009). Hence, a detailed empirical investigation of a contemporary phenomenon within its natural context and from multiple perspectives was achieved (Creswell, 1998; Hancock & Algozzine, 2006; Patton, 2002; Yin, 2009). 4.4.4 Boundaries of the case Miles and Huberman (1994) stressed the need to identify the boundaries of a case: what the study is and is not. Yin (1994, 2003) defined cases as units of analysis and study propositions, thereby avoiding discussion of bounded or specific systems. While Stake (1995) took the stance that not everything is or can be a case, he also cautioned of the need to specify a case’s boundaries, when appropriate, for a given study. The definition of the ‘unit’ or ‘case’ is at the researcher’s discretion (Stewart, 2013); Smith (1978) described this as necessarily defining the ‘boundaries of the system under study’ (p. 342).