Table 1

Characteristics of articles included in the thematic synthesis

First author	Publication year	Country	Eligible participants* and practice setting	Service users†	Data collection method	Analysis methodology	Study aims/objectives‡
Begg and Gill37	2005	UK	Seventeen general practitioners (GPs) General practice	Refugees and asylum seekers	Semi-structured interviews	Thematic framework	To identify some of the concerns of 17 GPs working in an urban environment
Bennett and Scammell38	2014	UK	Ten midwives Community, rotational, specialist and delivery suite midwives	Female asylum seekers	Semi-structured interviews	Thematic analysis	To gain an in-depth analysis of the experiences of midwives and their understanding of the specific needs of asylum-seeking women. The findings would be used to inform education, practice and policy to enable more effective delivery of woman-centred care for this group locally
Burchill39§	2011	UK	Fourteen health visitors London borough	Refugees and asylum seekers	In-depth interviews	Framework	Not clearly stated
Burchill and Pevalin18§	2012	UK	Fourteen health visitors London borough	Refugees and asylum seekers	In-depth interviews	Framework	To determine the barriers to effective practice that health visitors when working with refugees and asylum seekers
Burchill and Pevalin40§	2014	UK	Fourteen health visitors London borough	Refugees and asylum seekers	In-depth interviews	Framework	Explored the experiences of health visitors working with refugee and asylum-seeking families in central London, and assessed the dimensions of their cultural competency using Quickfall's model
Carolan and Cassar41	2008	Australia	Two midwives African women's clinic (community health centre)	Female African refugees	Observational methods and semi-structured interviews	Thematic analysis	To explore factors that facilitate or impede the uptake of antenatal care among African refugee women
Crowley59¶	2005	UK	Ten GPs General practice	Asylum seekers	Telephone interviews	Not specified	To assess the mental healthcare needs of adult asylum seekers in Newcastle upon Tyne
Drennan and Joseph42	2005	UK	Thirteen health visitors Two London boroughs	Refugees and asylum seekers	Semi-structured interviews	Framework	Describe health visitors’ experiences working in Inner London and identifying and addressing the health needs of refugee woman in the first 3 months after the birth of a baby. Investigate health visitors’ perceptions of effective and ineffective strategies in identifying and addressing health needs of these women. Investigate whether health visitors used a framework corresponding to Maslow's theory of a hierarchy of needs to prioritise their public health work
Farley et al 43	2014	Australia	Twenty GPs Five practice nurses General practice	Newly arrived refugees	Focus groups and semi-structured interviews	Thematic analysis	Explored the experiences of primary healthcare providers working with newly arrived refugees in Brisbane…focusing on the barriers and enablers they continue to experience in providing care to refugees
Feldmann et al 44	2007	The Netherlands	Twenty-four GPs General practice	Refugees (Afghan/Somali)	In-depth interviews	Thematic analysis	To confront the views of refugee patients and GPs in the Netherlands, focusing on medically unexplained physical symptoms
Furler et al 45**	2010	Australia	Eight family physicians Community health centre	Refugees with depression	Semi-structured interviews	Thematic analysis	This study explores the complexities of this work (clinical care for depression) through a study of how family physicians experience working with different ethnic minority communities in recognising, understanding and caring for patients with depression
Griffiths et al 46	2003	Australia	Thirteen nurses Two nurse managers Refugee reception centre	Refugees	Focus groups and semi-structured interviews	Thematic analysis	To identify the skills, knowledge and support nurses require to provide holistic and competent care to refugee children and their families and the nature of support that is required to assist their transition back to mainstream health services
Jensen et al 17	2013	Denmark	Nine GPs Medical clinics	Refugees	Semi-structured interviews	Content analysis	To qualitatively explore issues identified by GPs as important in their experiences of providing care for refugees with mental health problems
Johnson et al 47	2008	Australia	Twelve GPs General practice	Refugees	Semi-structured interviews	Template analysis	To document the existence and nature of challenges for GPs who do this work in South Australia. To explore the ways in which these challenges could be reduced. To discuss the policy implications of this in relation to optimising the initial healthcare for refugees
Kokanovic et al 48**	2010	Australia	Five GPs Community health centre	Refugees with depression	In-depth interviews	Thematic analysis	We explore a set of cultural boundaries across which depression is contested: between recent migrants to Australia from East Timor and Vietnam, and their white ‘Anglo’ family doctors
Kurth et al 19¶	2010	Switzerland	Three physicians Three nurses/midwives Women's clinic	Female asylum seekers	Semi-structured interviews	Grounded theory	To investigate the reproductive healthcare provided for women asylum-seekers attending the Women's Clinic of the University Hospital in the city of Basel, Switzerland. To identify the health needs of asylum seekers attending the Women's Clinic and to investigate the healthcare they received in a health maintenance organisation) specifically established for asylum seekers. Explored the perceptions of the healthcare professionals involved, about providing healthcare for this group in this setting
Lawrence and Kearns49	2005	New Zealand	Five medical practitioners Community health centre	Refugees	In-depth interviews	Thematic analysis	This paper reports on research that sought to reveal the barriers faced by refugees in accessing health services, and the challenges faced by providers in endeavouring to meet needs in an effective and culturally appropriate manner
Riggs et al 50	2012	Australia	Twelve nurses Maternal and child health services	Refugee background mothers	Focus groups and Interviews	Thematic analysis	To explore the utilisation and experience of maternal and child health services in Melbourne, Victoria for parents of refugee background from the perspective of users and providers
Samarasinghe et al 51	2010	Sweden	Thirty-four primary healthcare nurses Various: maternity, child, school, community healthcare, nurse-led clinics	Involuntary migrant families	Interviews	Contextual analysis	The aim of this study was to describe the promotion of health in involuntary migrant families in cultural transition as conceptualised by Swedish primary health care nurses
Suurmond et al 53††	2013	The Netherlands	Thirty-six nurse practitioners Ten public health physicians Asylum seeker centres	Newly arrived asylum seekers	Group interviews	Framework	To describe the tacit knowledge of Dutch healthcare providers about the care to newly arrived asylum seekers and to give insight into the specific issues that healthcare providers need to address in the first contacts with newly arrived asylum seekers
Suurmond et al 52††	2010	The Netherlands	Eighty-nine nurse practitioners (questionnaires) Thirty-six nurse practitioners (group interviews) Asylum seeker centres	Asylum seekers	Questionnaires and group interviews	Framework	We explored the cultural competences that nurse practitioners working with asylum seekers thought were important
Tellep et al 54	2001	USA	Six school nurses Schools	Refugees	Focus group	Unspecified	To describe the nature and meaning of school nurses’ and Cambodian liaisons’ experiences of caring for Cambodian refugee children and families and to explore whether those meanings validated Dobson's conceptual framework of transcultural health visiting
Tobin and Murphy-Lawless55	2014	Ireland	Ten midwives Maternity hospitals	Female asylum seekers	In-depth unstructured interviews	Content analysis	To explore midwives’ perceptions and experiences of providing care to women in the asylum process and to gain insight into how midwives can be equipped and supported to provide more effective care to this group in the future
Twohig et al 56	1999	Canada	Six family practice nurses Ten family physicians Clinic at refugee processing centre	Refugees	Semi-structured interviews	Textual analysis	To explore roles of family physicians and family practice nurses who provided care to Kosovar refugees at Greenwood, Nova Scotia
Yelland et al 57§	2014	Australia	Ten midwives Maternity services	Refugee background families	Interviews and focus groups	Thematic analysis	(1) investigate Afghan women and men's experience of the way that health professionals approach inquiry about social factors affecting families having a baby in a new country and (2) investigate how health professionals identify and respond to the settlement experience and social context of families of refugee background
Yelland et al 58§	2016	Australia	Ten midwives Maternity services	Refugee background families	Interviews and focus groups	Thematic analysis	(1) Describe Afghan women's and men's experiences of language support during pregnancy check-ups, labour and birth; (2) explore health professionals’ experiences of communicating with Afghan and other refugee clients with low English proficiency and (3) consider implications for health services and health policy

*Some studies included some participants not eligible for this review. These participants have not been included in this table.
†Service users as described by the authors.
‡The aims and objectives are from the author (ie, extracted directly from papers).
§These articles were based on data from the same sample, but reported different aspects.
¶Mixed methods were used in these studies. This table only includes characteristics of the qualitative element relevant to this review.
**The five GPs in Kokanovic 2010 are included within the eight physicians in Furler et al, 45 but report different aspects.
††The 36 nurse practitioners are common between articles, but report different aspects.