2.4. Data Presentation, Analysis and Synthesis

Data was extracted into an Excel spreadsheet under the following headings: (1) authors, (2) year, (3) country, (4) evaluator level, (5) funder, (6) setting and participants, (7) procedure (why and how), (8) objective(s), (9) proficiency of process (time, finances, skill, roles) and (10) purpose (what goals were attained), see Table 2 and Table 3. The topic was not expected to result in a large number of studies; therefore, a Narrative Synthesis denoting observations and common themes was used to summarise findings [21].

Included MHIA’s.

Characteristics of included Impact Assessments (effectiveness).

No suitable quality assessment framework was found for studies on IA. Effectiveness was therefore explored using a mapping exercise inspired by a recent approach outlined by Chachitpricha & Bond [18] including the following four categories: (1) Practice, that is, what procedures/principles were used, (2) Performance, in terms of how objectives were met, (3) Proficiency as in how resources were managed and (4) Purpose in terms of what goals were attained.