Studies that met the inclusion criteria were assessed for quality using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme qualitative checklist.
To gain a comprehensive view of the programme, qualitative and quantitative data will be combined and interpreted from different vantage points (e.g. demographic differences).
Quality assessment of qualitative papers was carried out in accordance with the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme qualitative research appraisal tool, which covered rigour, key research methods used, credibility and relevance.
Downs & Black quality assessment checklist, the Critical Appraisal Skill Programme qualitative tool, and the Critical Appraisal Guidelines for single case study research were used to assess the quality of included studies.
Guided by an existing quality appraisal framework that used a modified version of the CASP (Critical Appraisal Skills Programme) qualitative checklist, [ 38] a relevant quality appraisal tool was created by the authors and tailored to meet the aims of the meta synthesis (Appendix 1).
Further research on the Mitanin and the ASHA Programmes, both qualitative and quantitative, should be undertaken, exploring the various emerging themes.
This programme facilitates qualitative and quantitative analysis of text data according to lexicological distribution patterns.
To order the data, thematic coding was used with the support of MAXQDA [ 32], a software programme for qualitative analysis.
All transcribed texts were then entered into a software programme for qualitative data (Atlas-ti.7) and systematically coded (ML).
The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) qualitative research appraisal criteria (Public Health Resource Unit, 2006) were employed to assess the methodological quality of qualitative articles.
