Table 1.
Characteristics of included articles
| Characteristics | n (%) |
| Type of article | |
| Original article | 627 (50) |
| Short report/brief communications/perspective/commentary/opinion paper/narrative review | 506 (41) |
| Literature review (scoping or systematic) | 69 (6) |
| Case study | 36 (3) |
| Methodology | 4 (<1) |
| Study design | |
| Observational design | 561 (89) |
| Experimental design | 42 (7) |
| Both designs | 4 (1) |
| Unknown | 5 (1) |
| Not applicable | 15 (2) |
| Research method | |
| Quantitative method | 474 (76) |
| Qualitative method | 72 (11) |
| Both methods | 67 (11) |
| Unknown | 8 (1) |
| Not applicable | 6 (1) |
| Data collection | |
| Retrospective | 337 (60) |
| Cross-sectional | 113 (20) |
| Prospective | 86 (15) |
| Mix of retrospective and prospective | 14 (3) |
| Unknown | 5 (1) |
| Not applicable | 6 (1) |
| Type of organisation* | |
| Hospital | 687 (55) |
| Public/preventive care organisation | 27 (2) |
| University | 12 (1) |
| General practitioner | 11 (1) |
| Pharmaceutical organisation | 8 (1) |
| Health insurer | 3 (<1) |
| Other† | 56 (5) |
| Unknown | 77 (6) |
| Not applicable | 378 (30) |
*Total is more than 100% because multiple answers could be selected.
†For example: ambulatory care organisations, databases, dental care organisations, companies, focus clinics, government, home care facilities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), primary healthcare, rehabilitation facilities.