Topic	Item No.	Guide Questions/Description	Page
Domain 1: Research team and reflexivity
Personal characteristics
Interviewer/facilitator	1	Which author/s conducted the interview or focus group?	5
Credentials	2	What were the researcher's credentials? E.g. PhD, MD Response: HS is a MSc Research Fellow and RF is a PhD researcher.	NR
Occupation	3	What was their occupation at the time of the study? Response: HS is a MSc Research Fellow and RF is a PhD researcher.	NR
Gender	4	Was the researcher male or female? Response: Females.	NR
Experience and training	5	What experience or training did the researcher have? Response: All researchers had experience working with patients with ESRD.	NR
Relationship with participants
Relationship established	6	Was a relationship established prior to study commencement?	No
Participant knowledge of the interviewer	7	What did the participants know about the researcher? e.g. personal goals, reasons for doing the research Response: All researchers had experience working with patients with ESRD.	NR
Interviewer characteristics	8	What characteristics were reported about the inter viewer/facilitator? e.g. Bias, assumptions, reasons and interests in the research topic Response: All the research team members had experience working with patients with chronic diseases, but none had personally experienced an ESRD diagnosis.	NR
Domain 2: Study design
Theoretical framework
Methodological orientation and Theory	9	What methodological orientation was stated to underpin the study? e.g. grounded theory, discourse analysis, ethnography, phenomenology, content analysis	4
Participant selection
Sampling	10	How were participants selected? e.g. purposive, convenience, consecutive, snowball	4
Method of approach	11	How were participants approached? e.g. face‐to‐face, telephone, mail, email	4
Sample size	12	How many participants were in the study?	4
Non‐participation	13	How many people refused to participate or dropped out? Reasons?	4
Setting
Setting of data collection	14	Where was the data collected? e.g. home, clinic, workplace	5
Presence of non‐participants	15	Was anyone else present besides the participants and researchers?	5
Description of sample	16	What are the important characteristics of the sample? e.g. demographic data, date	Table 1
Data collection
Interview guide	17	Were questions, prompts, guides provided by the authors? Was it pilot tested?	Appendix 1
Repeat interviews	18	Were repeat interviews carried out? If yes, how many?	No
Audio/visual recording	19	Did the research use audio or visual recording to collect the data?	5
Field notes	20	Were field notes made during and/or after the interview or focus group?	5
Duration	21	What was the duration of the interviews or focus group?	5
Data saturation	22	Was data saturation discussed?	No
Transcripts returned	23	Were transcripts returned to participants for comment and/or correction?	No
Domain 3: analysis and findings
Data analysis
Number of data coders	24	How many data coders coded the data?	5
Description of the coding tree	25	Did authors provide a description of the coding tree?	No
Derivation of themes	26	Were themes identified in advance or derived from the data?	5–6
Software	27	What software, if applicable, was used to manage the data?	NA
Participant checking	28	Did participants provide feedback on the findings?	No
Reporting
Quotations presented	29	Were participant quotations presented to illustrate the themes/findings? Was each quotation identified? E.g. participant number	7–12
Data and findings consistent	30	Was there consistency between the data presented and the findings?	7–12
Clarity of major themes	31	Were major themes clearly presented in the findings?	7–12
Clarity of minor themes	32	Is there a description of diverse cases or discussion of minor themes?	13–15