Table 1 Modifications made to inclusion and exclusion criteria as part of review

Population

The population will include adults (defined as 18 years and older) who have been imprisoned and released to the community. Individuals released from custodial placements such as young offender institutions will be excluded. Individuals remaining in prison custody (eg, prisoners on remand and sentenced prisoners) will be excluded. There will be no exclusion on gender

During the screening of publications, it became apparent that the age definition for inclusion into the adult prison population differed in various regions. We therefore modified this criterion to include any definition of adult prison population. No other changes were made

Concept

The key concepts revolve around record linkage of drug-related deaths in adults who have been imprisoned. Included studies must use data linkage (or similar meaning terms) to determine mortality outcomes following release from prison. Studies with no data linkage will be excluded. Only studies reporting cause-specific mortality (ie, drug-related deaths) for either the entire study population or a subset of the study population will be included

No changes were made

Context

All geographical locations will be included. The review will include research from peer-review journals. Qualitative studies, commentaries, editorials and conference abstracts will be excluded

No changes were made