Table 7.

Description of included studies

First author and year	Research question	Population/consultations of interest	Area of research
Ali [20]	To provide a detailed understanding of the ways in which white and South Asian patients communicate with white GPs and to explore any similarities and differences in communication	South Asian patients	Communication: cross cultural
Als [21]	To identify patterns of GP and patient behaviour related to computer and to identify patient and doctor perceptions of the computer	Unselected	Doctor patient relationship: Impact of computer
Arborelius [17,22-28]	To describe and evaluate a stimulated recall methodology	Unselected (but stratified with respect to age & gender)	Evaluation of VSR method
	To study the difficulties and dilemmas a GP faces during daily consultations		‘Difficult’ consultations
	To understand phenomena in consultations where the GP has expressed difficulties		Doctor patient relationship
	To compare the patients' and the doctors' comments on video-recorded consultations in order to increase understanding of shortcomings in patient-doctor relationship
	To describe and understand the experiences of general practitioners in consultations
	To describe and understand patients' positive and negative experiences of General Practitioners
	To describe the specific behaviour in consultations where the patient experiences a satisfying human relationship with the GP
	To characterize health counselling discussion in the consultation	Subsample where health promotion discussed	Health promotion advice
Blakeman [16,29]	To explore self-management support in primary care consultations	Patients with long term conditions	Self-management
	To explore the relevance of computer information systems in self-management dialogue		Impact of computer
Bugge [19]	To investigate incidences, consequences and reasons for non-disclosure of information in decision making	Consultations in family planning clinic and diabetes clinica	Decision making
Cegala [30]	To compare doctor and patient views on communication during the consultation	New and follow up patients	Doctor-patient relationship
Coleman [14]	To elicit, relate and interpret GP accounts of why they discuss smoking with some patients and not others	Patients who smoke	Decision making
Cromarty [31]	To describe the range and type of thoughts patients have during their consultations	Unselected	Patients experiences
Epstein [15]	To describe the structure of HIV related discussion, characterise effective and efficient communication and identify common difficulties	Consultations where HIV risk is discussed	Communication
			Doctor-patient relationship
			Difficult consultations
Frankel [32]	To understand the characteristics of the ‘optimal healing environment’ in the consultation	Established patients presenting to doctors with a range of satisfaction scores	Doctor- patient relationship
Gao [33]	To explore the influence of cultural practices on discussion of colorectal screening	Patients having colorectal screening recommendations	Communication: Cross cultural
Henry [18]	To understand the impact of tacit clues on making judgements in the consultation	Patients undergoing health maintenance examinations	Decision making
Rosenburg [34,35]	To understand what occurs in a triadic encounter	Triadic Consultations involving an interpreter	Communication
	To delineate differences in encounters between professional and family interpreters
Rosenburg [13]	To explore the communication patterns and perceptions between family doctors and psychologically distressed immigrant patients?	Immigrant patients with psychological problems	Communication: Cross cultural
Saba [36]	To examine shared decision making and the experience of partnership of the doctors and patients	Stratified sample of patients presenting with diabetes or hypertension	Shared decision making
Timpka [37]	To compare the experiences of patients and care givers of consulting across the primary care team	Patients who encountered more than one team member in a visit	Clinician-patient relationship and team working
Treichler [38]	To identify and explore the power relations in a triadic consultation with GP, patients and medical student	Traidic consultation with medical student	Doctor-patient relationship
Ventres [39,40]	To explore how electronic health record affects encounters between physicians and patients	Unselected	Doctor-patient relationship: impact of computer

^aAnd other non-primary care consultations.