Intensive neurorehabilitation for patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness: protocol of a mixed-methods study focusing on outcomes, ethics and impact

Table 1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria of the three study populations

	Population A	Population B	Population C ^b
Participants	Patients with PDOC admitted to the EIN program	Family members of population A	• Treating physicians • Nurses • Multidisciplinary team^c
Inclusion criteria	• Age > 16 years • Diagnosis of PDOC based on CRS-R^a assessment by experienced researcher • Medically stable, as judged by treating physician	• Age > 16 years • Primary legal representative of patients included in population A	Currently working or was working until a maximum of 12 months ago, with PDOC patients within the Dutch chain of PDOC care
Exclusion criteria	• Presence of progressive brain injury including neurodegenerative disorders • Uncontrollable epilepsy	Non-fluency in Dutch or English	Non-fluency in Dutch or English

^aCRS-R Coma recovery scale revised: Standardized assessment tool for differentiating levels of consciousness by observation of pa tients’ response to different stimuli [52]
^bPopulation C involves different participants per study theme- (see details in study methodology)
^cMultidisciplinary team includes besides physician and nurses other disciplines actively involved in PDOC rehabilitation like physiotherapist, speech therapist, occupational therapist, social worker and psychologist

ISSN: 1471-2377