TABLE 2.
Category and code definitions for data extraction from included publications (Definitions of severity in treatment seeking studies of febrile illness in children in low and middle income countries: a scoping review, Switzerland, 2021).
| Category | Codes defined a priori | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Year of publication | — | Year in which the study was published |
| Study location | — | Country in which the study took place |
| Disease | — | Disease providing the context for the study |
| Method for data analysis | Quantitative | Treatment seeking for SFI was analyzed using quantitative methods |
| Qualitative | Treatment seeking for SFI was analyzed using qualitative methods | |
| Mixed methods | Treatment seeking for SFI was analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods | |
| Participant enrolment | Community | Participants are enrolled from their location of home |
| Health care provider | Participants are enrolled at a health care provider upon attendance or were identified as eligible participants through the screening of patient register entries | |
| Community + health care provider | Participants are enrolled from their location of home and at health care providers | |
| Sample size (quantitative analyses only) | All | Total number of illness episodes included in the quantitative treatment seeking research component |
| SFI | Number of SFI episodes included in the quantitative treatment seeking research component | |
| Definition of SFI | — | Descriptions of SFI. SFI is any febrile condition that is described as severe, serious, complicated, dangerous, fatal, deadly, or life threatening. The definition of severity may be pre-defined or emerge from the findings of the study |
| Concepts of severity in quantitative analyses | — | Severity may play different roles in quantitative analyses of treatment seeking (e.g., covariate, inclusion criteria, etc.). The exploration of this concept is iterative and inductive |
| Inclusion criteria (quantitative analyses only) | — | Inclusion criteria for the enrolment of participants |
| Exclusion criteria (quantitative analyses only) | — | Exclusion criteria for the enrolment of participants |
| Treatment seeking outcomes (quantitative analyses only) | Treatment seeking proportion | The study outcome classifies treatment seeking actions for SFI into seeking care from outside home and not seeking care from outside of home. For studies enrolling participants from health care providers, the treatment seeking proportion distinguishes between children seeking care from another provider and children directly coming from home before attending the enrolling provider |
| Referral adherence | Dichotomous variable that distinguishes between adhering and not adhering to referral advice for SFI. | |
| Other dichotomous outcome | Other dichotomous treatment seeking outcomes for SFI, e.g., seeking care from appropriate provider vs. seeking care from inappropriate provider | |
| Sources of treatment | Treatment seeking outcomes are classified into different sources of treatment for SFI. | |
| Delays | Delays can either be defined as a threshold after which treatment seeking is considered to be delayed, or the treatment seeking outcome is reported as the mean or median time until treatment |