Table 1.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

	Inclusion criteria	Exclusion criteria
Patient characteristics	Mean age >75 years.	Mean age <75 years.
		Focus on a disease-specific terminal condition, eg, malignancy, organ failure or dementia.
Content of advance care planning conversations	Discussions with patients about their personal values, life goals and preferences regarding future medical care.	Discussions concerning resuscitation or goals-of-care for current admission.
	Discussions of end-of-life plans or advance care plans or advance directives.	Appointment of a healthcare proxy without other elements of advance care planning.
		Assisted suicide or euthanasia.
		Discharge planning.
		Care in the last few days of life.
Setting	Acute inpatient setting, including data from several settings where acute hospital data are presented separately.	Outpatient clinics, general practitioner clinic, care home or rehabilitation setting.
	All global healthcare systems.
Publication characteristics	All research methods presenting new empirical data.	Types of article: opinion pieces, guidelines, individual case reports, study proposals/protocols, conference abstracts, PhD theses, grey literature and non-peer-reviewed journals.
		Articles not published in English.
		Articles published prior to 1990.