Table 1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria for selection of articles on physicians’ perspectives

Types of study reported on

• Published empirical studies using qualitative, or mixed-methods designs

• Publication language was English

• Inclusion was not restricted to a particular time period

• Dissertations, books, book chapters, theoretical articles, guidelines, reviews, case reports, opinion articles, or conference abstracts

Participants in the study

• Practicing physicians in studies sampling their attitudes alone, or

• Practicing physicians in studies sampling their attitudes and others including nonphysician clinicians, children, adolescents or parents, only if physicians’ data could be separately extracted

• Studies in which only the perspectives of nonphysician clinicians (e.g., nurses, midwives, trainees, students, children, adolescents, or parents) were sampled

Outcome measures in study reported on

• Physicians’ perspectives, perceptions, attitudes, experiences, preferences, values, feelings, opinions toward the decision-making process about withdrawing/withholding life-sustaining treatments in paediatric patients (children and adolescents: 1–18 years old)

• Measures of withdrawing/withholding life-sustaining treatment process in paediatrics and measures focusing on the different steps of withdrawing/withholding life-sustaining treatments in paediatrics separately.

• Measures of only palliative care or end-of-life in paediatrics

• Measures of only the complementary alternative medicine or euthanasia in paediatrics

• Measures of only withdrawing/withholding life-sustaining treatments in neonates (0 to 1 year old)