Table 2 Key steps involved in conducting data synthesis following data extraction

1

Active reading of the studies to understand the context, to appraise study quality and to extract relevant data

2

Themes/ concepts were identified in the ‘results’ and ‘discussion’ sections of papers from both i) participant raw data (first order constructs) and ii) the authors’ interpretations of this (second order constructs) and these were coded

3

Second order constructs and the assigned codes were compared and contrasted within and across studies in NVivo11

4

Overall key concepts were identified (with narrative summary) and extracted to excel to be outlined in a matrix

5

The relationship between i) each study and ii) each key concept was examined, with the original context of each in mind

6

Studies were ‘translated’ (reciprocally and refutationally) into one another and the similarities/differences identified enabled the development of a conceptual model/theory/etc. which accounted for these based on the original study context. Here the original language used by authors is retained (fidelity to original meaning/context)

7

A synthesis of translations allowed for the building of third order constructs and the ultimate development of a line-of-argument synthesis. Active re-reading of the original studies was conducted to verify the appropriateness of the synthesis, prior to write-up