Table 1 Eligibility criteria for selecting papers
| Â | Eligibility criteria |
|---|---|
Definition of exploratory study | • A study which aims to generate the evidence needed to decide whether and how to proceed with a full-scale effectiveness trial, or other study design and are labelled as exploratory/pilot/feasibility/phase II/proof of concept. Eligible publications may concern some or all of the design features of exploratory studies |
Nature of guidance | • Guidance on the purpose, design, implementation or reporting of exploratory studies and/or • Other publication that reports ‘substantive information’ concerning the conduct of exploratory studies within public health—e.g. worked examples and methodological papers |
Applicability to public health | • Public health audiences clearly among intended users of the guidance (authors are from Public Health departments, cites literature from public health journals, provides public health examples or uses the term ‘public health’ or variants of this, e.g. ‘prevention science’) or • Unspecific audience but of plausible relevance to public health (might, for example, include either an author from a public health research department or a citation to a public health journal) |
Publication type/source | Book, book chapter, journal article, report or readily available doctoral thesis, funding organisation websites (UK and non-UK based) |
Date and language restrictions | Publications reported since 2000 to date (November 2016), in any language. |