Topic	Item no	Guide questions/description	Location
Domain 1: Research team and reflexivity
Personal characteristics
Interviewer/facilitator	1	Which author/s conducted the interview or focus groups	Method
Credentials	2	What were the researcher’s credentials? E.g., PhD, MD	Method
Occupation	3	What was their occupation at the time of the study?	Method
Gender	4	Was the researcher male or female?	Method
Experience and training	5	What experience or training did the researcher have?	Method
Relationship with participants
Relationship established	6	Was relationship established prior to study commencement?	Method
Participant knowledge of the interviewer	7	What did the participants know about the researcher? E.g., personal goals, reasons for doing the research	Method
Interview characteristics	8	What characteristics were reported about the interviewer/facilitator? E.g., bias, assumptions, reasons and interests in the research topic	Method
Domain 2: Study design
Theoretical framework
Methodological orientation and Theory	9	What methodological orientation was stated to underpin the study? E.g., grounded theory, discourse analysis, ethnography, phenomenology, content analysis	Method
Participant selection
Sampling	10	How were participants selected? E.g., purposive, convenience, consecutive, snowball	Method
Method of approach	11	How were participants approached? E.g., face-to-face, telephone, mail, email	Method
Sample size	12	How many participants were in the study?	Method
Non-participation	13	How many people refused to participate or dropped out? Reasons?	Method
Setting
Setting of data collection	14	Where was the data collected? E.g., Home, clinic, workplace	Method
Presence of non-participants	15	Was anyone else present besides the participants and researchers?	Method
Description of sample	16	What are the important characteristics of the sample? E.g., demographic data	Method
Data collection
Interview guide	17	Were questions, prompts, guides provided by the authors? Was it pilot tested?	Method and Appendix C
Repeat interviews	18	Were repeat interviews carried out? If yes, how many?	N/A
Audio/visual recording	19	Did the researcher use audio or video recording to collect the data?	Method
Field notes	20	Were field notes made during and/or after the interview or focus group?	Method
Duration	21	What was the duration of the interviews or focus group?	Method
Data saturation	22	Was data saturation discussed?	N/A The concept of data saturation is incompatible with a reflexive thematic analysis approach as adopted in this paper (see Braun & Clarke, 2019)
Transcripts returned	23	Were transcripts returned to participants to comment and/or correction?	Method
Domain 3: Analysis and findings
Data analysis
Number of data coders	24	How many data coders coded the data?	Method
Description of the coding tree	25	Did authors provide a description of the coding tree?	Results
Derivation of themes	26	Were themes identified in advance or derived from the data?	Method
Software	27	What software, if applicable, was used to manage the data?	Method
Participant checking	28	Did participants provide feedback on the findings?	Method
Reporting
Quotations presented	29	Were participant quotations presented to illustrate the themes/findings? Was each quotation identified? E.g., participant number	Results
Data and findings consistent	30	Was there consistency between the data presented and the findings?	Results
Clarity of major themes	31	Were major themes clearly presented in the findings?	Results
Clarity of minor themes	32	Is there a description of diverse cases or discussion of minor themes	Results No distinction made specifically of minor themes, but examples of diverse views embedded within the consideration of each theme, reflecting real-world complexity