TABLE 1.
Characteristics of Included Studies Retrieved in Searches and with Additional Purposive Sampling
| Number | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Characteristic | Searches | Purposive | Percentage of Totala | |
| Year published | Before 2000 | 12 | 17 | 18.1 |
| 2000–2004 | 24 | 3 | 16.9 | |
| 2005 | 14 | 0 | 8.8 | |
| 2006 | 11 | 1 | 7.5 | |
| 2007 | 12 | 0 | 7.5 | |
| 2008 | 12 | 0 | 7.5 | |
| 2009 | 20 | 0 | 12.5 | |
| 2010 | 21 | 1 | 13.8 | |
| 2011 | 11 | 0 | 6.9 | |
| 2012 | 0 | 1 | 0.6 | |
| Discipline | Health policy | 104 | 4 | 67.5 |
| Health services and policy research/health economics | ||||
| Population health policy research | 13 | 0 | 8.1 | |
| Social policy/public administration/political science | 16 | 19 | 21.9 | |
| International development | 4 | 0 | 2.5 | |
| Empirical versus conceptual | Empirical studies | 98 | 7b | 65.6 |
| Conceptual papers and opinion pieces | 39 | 16b | 34.4 | |
| Study designs (empirical papers) | Case description | 42 | 0 | 40.0 |
| Case study (single) | 17 | 1 | 17.1 | |
| Key informant interviews and/or focus groups | 9 | 0 | 8.6 | |
| Mixed/multiple methods | 9 | 0 | 8.6 | |
| Survey | 7 | 0 | 6.7 | |
| Case study (multiple) | 6 | 6 | 11.4 | |
| Systematic review | 3 | 0 | 2.9 | |
| Narrative review | 3 | 0 | 2.9 | |
| Document analysis | 2 | 0 | 2.9 | |
Notes:
a
Total percentages may be over 100 due to rounding.
b
Distinguishing between conceptual and empirical was less meaningful for the papers that were purposively sampled to fill conceptual gaps, as all of them were sampled because it was known by members of the research team that they had important theoretical concepts to offer. Papers sampled purposively and coded above as “empirical” are those that rely primarily on a clearly defined policy case or cases to develop, illustrate, and support their theoretical arguments.