Table 1.

Eligibility criteria for inclusion of articles in the review

PICOS	Details of eligibility
Population	Ward nurses and junior physicians (residents, medical officers and house officers).
Phenomena of Interest	Articles related to factors influencing the RRS activation for adult patients in general wards by frontline ward clinicians and/or frontline ward clinicians’ attitudes, perceptions and experiences of the RRS were included.
	Articles related to evaluating the effectiveness or impact of the RRS on patient outcomes and/or involved patients with the ‘Do-Not-Resuscitate’ order were excluded.
Context	Conducted in adult general ward settings.
	Articles conducted in rural, obstetric and gynecological, pediatrics and mental-health settings, as well as outside of the adult general ward settings were excluded.
Study design	Original primary studies of any design in the English language published between January 1995 and January 2016 were included. The year 1995 was chosen as the cut-off date as it marked the first study outlining the concept of the RRS.
	Only full text articles were included.
	Conference abstracts or proceedings were excluded due to insufficient study details.
	General editorials, case reports, and gray literature were excluded to provide a level of quality control and to reflect evidence-based practice.

PICOS, Population, Phenomena of Interest, Context, Study design; RRS, rapid response system.