Study	Reason for exclusion
Cheng 2007	This study is a randomised controlled trial comparing two types of VR: clinic‐based work hardening (CWH) groups and workplace‐based work hardening (WWH) groups. We excluded this study because the participants had sustained shoulder injury, which did not meet our inclusion criteria of acute upper limb injury.
Crowley 2013	This study is a randomised controlled trial comparing the effects of active mobilisation and thumb spica immobilisation, which are not forms of vocational rehabilitation.
Faux 2015	This study is a randomised controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of an early rehabilitation intervention versus a brief education intervention following road trauma on RTW. We excluded this study because the participants were not workers with upper limb trauma.
Murad 2011	This is a RTW assessment validation study from the same Malaysian research team that conducted the Murad 2013 study. We excluded this study because it did not evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention.
Murad 2013	This is a social policy RTW survey programme for workers with musculoskeletal disorders that did not employ a randomised controlled trial design to evaluate intervention effectiveness. What is more, only 19 out of 102 (18.6%) recruited participants had upper limb injuries, which did not meet our inclusion criteria of 50% or more participants having sustained an acute episode of traumatic upper limb injury involving any parts of the fingers, hand, wrist, forearm, elbow, or arm.

RTW: return‐to‐work; VR: vocational rehabilitation.