Background: A broad spectrum of quantitative survey research has been conducted internationally to gather empirical information about physicians’ general attitude towards healthcare rationing (HCR). Are physicians ready to accept and implement healthcare rationing, or are they reluctant? Do they prefer bedside rationing that does not refer to explicit criteria, but instead allows the physician-patient relationship broad leeway in individual decisions and permits varying decisions among patients? Or do physicians prefer strategies that apply explicit criteria found, for instance, in higher level cost-conscious guidelines? Objectives: First, to analyse the range of quantitative survey findings on HCR. Second, to discuss differences in response patterns. Third, to provide conceptual and practical recommendations that can enhance transparency and systematic conduct in the process of reviewing survey literature. Methods: We performed a systematic search for all English and non-English language references using CINAHL, EMBASE, and MEDLINE. Employing an explicit list of inclusion criteria, three experts in the subject of the systematic review independently evaluated title and abstract of each reference. References were blinded for source, author, and year of publication. To frame the analysis, we extracted survey items that match with one of the following issues: (i) willingness to ration health care or (ii) preferences for different strategies of HCR. Items that match with one of these issues were grouped together in a table indicating the original reference, the original wording, and the revealed agreement or disagreement in percentages. Results: The systematic literature search yielded 557 references, of which 16 were eventually included in the systematic review after relevance and quality assessment. 28 items focused on the physicians’ willingness to accept HCR, and 18 items focused on the physicians’ attitudes to different explicit and implicit strategies of HCR. Percentages of respondents willing to accept HCR ranged from 94% to 9%. Conclusions: The conflicting findings among studies illustrate important ambivalence in physicians that has several implications for health policy. In addition, this review highlights conceptual and practical recommendations to enhance transparency and systematic conduct in the process of reviewing survey literature.