Table 1.

Joanna Briggs Institute 5-stage approach to meta-aggregation.

Stage	Details	Evidence
1	Critical appraisal – All included studies were subject to critical appraisal prior to data extraction. This also included a review of the credibility and dependability of the studies included.	Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Tool
2	Extraction – Study characteristics were extracted including study methods, phenomenon of interest, theme and sub themes (verbatim and illustrative quote).	Joanna Briggs Institute Qualitative Extraction Tool
3	Categorisation – The results of the studies (themes and sub-themes) were initially grouped and then given a categorisation.	Joanna Briggs Institute Meta-Aggregation Approach
4	Synthesised findings – The categories generated then lead to the creation of ‘synthesised findings’ that provide a comprehensive and representative conclusion to the categories.	Joanna Briggs Institute Meta-Aggregation Approach
5	Evidence level – Each study that forms parts of the synthesised finding was given a designated evidence levels of 1) unequivocal (open to challenge), 2) credible (interpretation) and 3) unsupported (no supporting evidence) – this relates to themes being supported by citations or interview excerpts provided by participants. This is then taken into account for the ConQual score regarding the confidence for each finding.	Joanna Briggs Institute Meta-Aggregation Approach and ConQual