Inclusion and exclusion criteria
| Category | Inclusion criteria | Exclusion criteria |
| Population | Patients aged over 65 years. Carers of patients aged over 65 years. | Population aged under 65 years. Insufficient subgroup reporting to enable analysis of subjects aged over 65 years within mixed population. |
| Intervention | Any intervention in the ED. | Interventions delivered wholly outside of the ED. |
| Outcome | Studies reporting patients’ or carers’ preferred outcomes for emergency healthcare. | Studies reporting outcomes described only by healthcare professionals. Studies reporting only experiences during or satisfaction after ED care, from which expectations could not be ascertained or inferred. |
| Setting | Care delivered in hospital-based ED(s). | Care wholly delivered outside of ED settings. |
| Study type | Qualitative and quantitative studies published in peer-reviewed journals. | Papers with insufficient data for analysis of subjects’ expectations. Papers not available in English. Systematic reviews. |