Data analysis and synthesis

Descriptive items (eg, number of positive RCTs) were tallied and synthesised into three tables: (1) Overall characteristics: presenting the studies grouped into different diseases and ordered by year of publication (online supplementary appendix 3); (2) methods table: grouping studies by the stages of the PE (ie, feasibility/piloting, effectiveness, post-evaluation) (online supplementary appendix 4); and (3) quality assessment: findings based on a bespoke assessment tool which was designed based on some of the key recommendations from the MRC guidance and two other papers which had synthesised PE literature before (online supplementary appendix 5).

bmjopen-2018-025127supp003.pdf

bmjopen-2018-025127supp004.pdf

bmjopen-2018-025127supp005.pdf

Extracted qualitative data were coded by HL, and grouped into categories of context, mechanisms and implementation. Inductive derivation of the key themes was done through constant comparison between the findings from the papers within each category and examining the relationships between them. Online supplementary appendix 6 provides illustrative quotations. Using a modified MRC framework, we mapped our methodological and implementation findings to triangulate and synthesise our findings.

bmjopen-2018-025127supp006.pdf