Table 1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Types of participants

Any participants

No study will be excluded based on participant characteristics

Issues

Studies examining ‘ethical challenge(s)’ in any healthcare context

Studies not reporting research in a healthcare context

Methodologies

Qualitative studies, mixed methods and quantitative studies, systematic reviews, structured but non-systemic reviews (narrative syntheses, rapid reviews, scoping reviews and other records with a described protocol that could be independently followed.) or their published protocols

These may include expert opinion, bioethical argument pieces or case studies and analysis.Expert reviews on topics with no formal structure or published protocol details

Timeframe

Five years. Publications indexed between 01/04/2016 and 31/03/2021

Indexed outside of this timeframe

Type of publications

Reports that contain the phrase ‘ethical challenge(s)’ in the title

Peer-reviewed journal publications of empirical research or structured reviews published in English

Where no full text is available through the university subscription, study authors will be contacted for full text. If there is no response within two weeks, the study will be excluded

The following will also be excluded:

Conference abstracts

Editorials, letters, or comment/opinion pieces

Book sections