Table 1.

Summary of eligibility criteria.

	Included	Excluded
Population	Children aged <18 years with GHD, an rhGH- indicated condition, or a chronic condition requiring daily or weekly self- or caregiver-administered injectable treatment (MS, JIA, IBD) Parents or caregivers of pediatric patients treated with regular injections for these conditions	Studies in adults or where outcomes of pediatric patients are not reported separately from those of adult patients
Intervention	rhGH or a self- or caregiver-administered injectable drug (SC or IM) indicated for ongoing daily or weekly treatment of chronic conditions (MS, JIA, IBD) in pediatric populations	Interventions that are not delivered by SC or IM injection (i.e., topical, oral, or infusion) Interventions that are not identified as SC or IM injection only and that could include other administration routes (e.g., “biologics” if this category includes infused or IV agents) ( Supplementary Table S1 )
Comparator	Any or none	Not applicable
Outcomes	Clearly identifiable/defined standardized measures (validated or non-validated) AND reported prevalence of adherence/non- adherence or compliance/non-compliance to injectable drugs, OR Explicitly identifiable and measured (a) barriers to adherence, OR (b) characteristics of patients, families/caregivers, providers, or institutions associated with adherence to prescribed treatment, OR (c) properties of the treatment, such as administration route or schedule, associated with adherence	Publications that (a) do not define how adherence was measured, or (b) do not report rate of adherence/non-adherence (e.g., discontinuation or persistence only would be excluded), or (c) do not report barriers/factors affecting adherence For inclusion, outcomes must be reported for SC or IM injectable drugs separately from infusion/IV, oral, or other routes of administration ( Supplementary Table S1 )
Study design	Observational studies (prospective or retrospective; including cohort studies, cross- sectional studies, or surveys) RCTs or non-RCTs (if reporting medication adherence or compliance)	Studies with non-empirical, theoretical, or narrative discussion of adherence and no quantitative measure of adherence Publications reporting methods or tool development, unless they report either a quantitative measure of adherence/non- adherence or factors associated with adherence Other study designs were not eligible (e.g., pre-clinical, case reports/studies reporting patient- level data only, economic studies, pooled data analyses, or meta-analyses) Systematic reviews published from 2015 onwards were not eligible for inclusion but were hand-searched for additional relevant references
Limits	Published in peer-reviewed journal from 2015 to 2020 Studies not published in English will be considered, with data extraction limited to English language elements and numerical data	Unpublished data and data from conference abstracts

GHD, growth hormone deficiency; IBD, inflammatory bowel disease; IM, intramuscular; IV, intravenous; JIA, juvenile idiopathic arthritis; MS, multiple sclerosis; RCT, randomized contrail trial; rhGH, recombinant growth hormone; SC, subcutaneous.