Table 2.

Study characteristics of qualitative studies

Author/Year	Study population/ sample size	Country/city	Study Design	Gender	Age
Bascombe et al. (2016) [30]	20 interviews Physicians-15 Nurses-3 Physician assistants-2 Georgia- 6 Atlanta- 60 invited, 14 interviewed	Atlanta metro and rural southern Georgia, USA	Semi-structured interviews.	Female-13 Male-7	Mean age- 45.25 years
El-Shahawy et al. (2016) [31]	15 interviews Family medicine physicians-11 Internal medicine physicians-4 University health system- 46 invited, 7 interviewed ACORN- 26 invited, 8 interviewed	Virginia, USA	Semi-structured interviews.	Female- 47% Male- 53%	Mean age- 43.1 years
Hunter et al. (2021) [32]	60 interviews Midwives-17 Health visitors-10 General practitioners-15 Stop smoking specialists-18	UK (including Wales and Northern Ireland)	In-depth interviews.	Female-50 Male-10	18–25 years- 3 26–35 years- 16 36–45 years- 13 46–55 years- 21 56–65 years- 6 66+ years- 1
Kollath-Cattano et al. (2019) [33]	14 interviews (18 expressed interest) Internal medicine-5 Family medicine-6 Obstretics/gynaecology-3	South Carolina, USA	Semi-structure interview.	N/A	N/A
Ofei-Dodoo et al. (2017) [36]	117 family physicians (154 invited)	Kansas, USA	Mixed methods. Questionnaire and in depth interviews	Female-50 Male-57	N/A
Singh et al. (2017) [34]	35 interviews Primary care physicians-10 Obstetrics/gynaecology-10 Cardiologists-5 Pulmonologists-5 Oncologists-5	USA	Semi-structured interview.	Female- 8 Male- 27	Mean age- 55.5 years
Stepney et al. (2019) [35]	23 interviews (45 invited) General practitioners-15 Nurses-8	Thames Valley and South Midlands, West of England, Eastern and East Midlands, UK	Semi-structured interviews.	N/A	N/A