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The project undertook fieldwork with three sets of respondents: semi-structured interviews with 52 key informants/policy stakeholders (not included in archive for anonymity reasons), 27 focus groups with frontline welfare practitioners who implement policy; and repeat qualitative longitudinal interviews with a diverse sample of 481 welfare service users (WSU) who were subject to conditionality. Each person was invited to interview three times. WSU were sampled to inform 9 different policy areas (ASB / Disability / Ex-Offenders/ Homelessness / Jobseeking / Lone Parents / Migrants / Social Housing / Universal Credit). The fieldwork took place in a range of cities across England and Scotland. For further details about the context and methods of Welfare Conditionality, please see www.welfareconditionality.ac.uk.

Additional file 1. Topic guides for interviews with staff, stakeholders, and people with experience of homelessness

A bibliometric review was conducted to assess the available scientific knowledge regarding the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by Individuals Experiencing Homelessness (IEH) and reflect on the existing evidence that ICT use has on their health. A total of 50 published articles were selected after a process of systematic review from five databases containing record of publications up until 2016. All the studies were published in English, half of the works were published in the last three years and 48% of them included the description of ICT use as an objective. Despite the fact that experimental studies were rare, and sample sizes typically small, it was concluded that the studies analyzing the effect of ICT on health display benefits. ndeed, the use of such technology offers promising opportunities to explore new ways of intervention in prevention, harm reduction and health treatment of IEH.