Table 3.

Features of qualitative studies describing patient experiences of NHS Health Checks

Author, year	Type of report	Location of study	Setting of NHS Health Check	Data collection method	Setting for data collection	n	Method of recruitment to study	Participant characteristics	Method of analysis	Overall quality
Alford33	Evaluation report	Knowsley	Community	Interviews and focus groups	Not given	36	No details given	19 females, 17 males 13 high risk score, 23 low risk score	Thematic analysis	Medium
Baker et al18	Journal article	Gloucester	83 general practices	Content analysis of cross-sectional survey	NA	1011 (43%)	Survey sent to all patients who had completed an NHS Health Check within a 2 month period	55.2% female 19% 56–60 years 10.8% 40–45 years 96% white British	Thematic analysis	High
Chipchase et al34	Report	East and North Birmingham	2 general practices	Face-to-face semi-structured interviews	GP surgery	10	Attendees to NHS Health Checks in the first 2 weeks of February 2011 received a recruitment letter	8 females, 2 males	Interpretative phenomeno-logical analysis	High
Corlett25	Journal article	London	4 pharmacies	Telephone interviews with sample of survey respondents	On the telephone	19	Invitation for a semi-structured telephone interview included with survey sent to all those who had attended an NHS Health Check within a 4 week period	Not given	Thematic analysis using framework approach	Medium
NHS Greenwich21	Report	Greenwich	Community	Open-ended questionnaire, focus groups and in-depth phone interviews	Not given	612 survey responses 4 focus groups and 31 interviews	Recruited from community outreach services providing NHS Health Checks	Ethnic minority participants: 42% female	Based on Health Belief Model	Medium
Ismail and Atkin26	Journal article	Not specified	General practices	Semistructured interviews	Participants’ homes or NHS premises	45 baseline 38 follow-up	Purposive sampling from a list provided by five participating general practices	21 females, 24 males Average age: 58. Ethnicity: 37 White, 5 South Asian and 3 African Caribbean	Framework analysis	High
Jenkinson et al27	Journal article	Torbay	4 general practices	Telephone or face-to-face interviews	On the telephone or participants’ homes	17	Letters of invitation sent to a random sample identified by general practices from lists stratified by age and gender of those who had not responded to an invitation to an NHS health check within 4 weeks.	12 females, 5 males 6 employed, 1 unemployed, 10 retired	Thematic analysis	High
Krska et al17	Journal article	Sefton, an area of North West England	16 general practices	Postal survey with free text responses	NA	434 (23.4%)	All patients with estimated 10 year CVD risk>20% from the 16 practices were sent a postal survey regardless of whether they had attended an NHS Health Check or not	19% female 68.2% over 65 99.5% white 7.7% highest quintile of deprivation 13.7% lowest quintile	Categorisation of responses	Medium
McNaughton37	Journal article	North East England (non-specific location)	5 general practices	Semistructured interviews	Not given	29	Invitations to patients from five general practices who had received an NHS Health Check and had an estimated 10 year CVD risk>20%	10 females, 19 males 24 over 65 years 13 in least deprived quintile	Thematic analysis	High
Oswald et al35	Evaluation report	Teesside	General practices or pharmacies	Telephone semistructured interviews	On the telephone	8	Invited by general practices or pharmacies or from a list of patients who had attended an NHS Health Check and agreed to take part in the service evaluation	6 had attended general practices and two pharmacies	Thematic analysis	Medium
Perry et al29	Journal article	Knowsley	Community	Interviews and focus groups	Not given	36	Letter or telephone invitation to all 38 people who were at high risk of CVD and had attended an NHS Health Check in the past 12–18 months were invited. The remaining attendees at low risk of CVD were purposively sampled for gender, age, risk score.	3 focus groups: 1 for high risk scores (6 males), 2 for low risk scores (17 females and 7 males) 6semi-structured interviews (2 females and 4males with high risk score)	Thematic analysis	High
Riley et al31	Journal article	Bristol inner city	Community	Semistructured interviews	Community venues or participants’ homes	16	Participants were recruited via their attendance of community outreach events.	7 females, 9 males All from black and minority ethnic populations	Thematic analysis	High
Riley et al30	Journal article	Bristol	General practices	Face-to-face and telephone semi-structured interviews	On the telephone or in participants’ homes	28	Purposive sampling from those identified through a search of patient records for patients who had undertaken an NHS Health Check within the previous 6 months	16 females, 12 males 23 White British 11 most deprived quintile 11 high (>20%) CVD risk	Thematic analysis	High
Shaw et al32	Journal article	Birmingham and Black Country	General practices and community	Semistructured interviews	Not given	23	Patients who had attended an NHS Health Check were invited by practice managers or lead clinicians	High black and minority ethnic population and high levels of deprivation	Thematic analysis	High
Strutt36	Masters thesis	Darlington, Co Durham, UK	two general practices	Semistructured face-to-face interviews	Participants’ homes	16	Invitation letters or telephone	7 females, 9 males White, South-Asian and Middle Eastern	Thematic analysis	High

CVD, cardiovascular disease; GP, general practitioner; NA, not applicable; NHS, National Health Service.