If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the current evidence regarding the content of clinical supervision for nursing and allied health professionals. Design/methodology/approach -The authors searched CINAHL, Medline, PsychINFO and Cochrane Database. Studies were included if the participants involved were nursing, medical or allied health practitioners, but not students, and if the studies contained discussion regarding the content of clinical supervision. Critical analysis of the articles was carried out by two independent researchers to ensure consistency and thematic analysis was applied. Findings -Twenty included articles were in three main categories: cross-sectional studies (n ¼ 9), including interview, survey and focus group methods of data collection; literature reviews (n ¼ 2); and nine published opinion pieces. Themes related to the content of clinical supervision that were identified were reflective practice; task oriented content; diversity of content; and stress management. The results indicated that current research into the content of clinical supervision for nursing and allied health practitioners is limited and of low quality and that further research is needed to determine what content in clinical supervision is associated with better quality and safety, particularly for health professions other than nursing and psychology. Originality/value -This is the first review of the current evidence for what constitutes the most appropriate content of clinical supervision for health professionals. Clinical supervision is an important component of quality assurance and clinical governance frameworks and it is essential that health care organizations are assured that effective clinical supervision is in place.