Table 1 PICOS, inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria applied to literature search
| Inclusion criteria | Exclusion criteria | |
|---|---|---|
| Population | • Physicians | • Main focus on other health professionals such as: |
| ° Nurses | ||
| ° Allied health workers | ||
| ° Healthcare support staff | ||
| • Main focus on patients, caregiver, family or friends | ||
| • Students from health professions such as: | ||
| ° Medical students | ||
| ° Nursing students | ||
| ° Allied health students | ||
| Intervention / Exposure | • Being involved in the care of dying patients in the adult ICU | • No involvement in care of dying patients |
| ° No clearly defined patient care experience (e.g. study just explores attitudes to death/ palliative care) | ||
| ° Patient population not dying patients (incl. “geriatrics”, patients without specification that they are dying) | ||
| ° Physician assisted suicide/ medical assistance in death/ suicide | ||
| • Personal experience of death of family/ friend | ||
| • Non-adult ICUs such as: | ||
| ° Paediatric ICUs | ||
| ° Neonatal ICUs | ||
| Comparison | ||
| Outcome measures |
• Impact on doctors ° Emotional ° Psychological ° Behavioural ° Physical | |
| Study design |
• English language • Time of publication between 1990 and 2019 • No restriction on study design (qualitative, quantitative, mixed) • No restriction on geographical location of study or publication |
• Grey Literature, electronic and print information not controlled by commercial publishing • Narrative literature reviews without methodology • Case reports and series, commentaries, editorials, and perspectives • Non-English publications without English translation • Unable to retrieve full article |