The NRC Dataset. Developing a Minimum Dataset for Multidisciplinary Rehabilitation: a Modified E-Delphi Study

Several rehabilitation datasets are presently in use for specific patient groups in England. The 'National Clinical Audit of Specialist Rehabilitation for patients with complex needs following major injury' (NCASRI) evaluated outcomes within a cohort of Major Trauma patients between 2015 and 2018 using data from two of these datasets. The NCASRI project outlined some of the shortcomings of the pre-existing datasets and highlighted the need for a single National Rehabilitation Dataset to provide long term evaluation of a variety of patient presentations.

The proposed study will seek to develop such a dataset by means of an E-delphi study. This study will seek consensus from a panel of experts on the data items required to measure the effectiveness and socio-economic impact of multidisciplinary inpatient rehabilitation. Providing commissioners, researchers and clinicians with the data required to improve patient care, conduct research and develop rehabilitation services.

There are three potential phases to this study:

* Phase one involves the establishment of a core domain set, outlining what information (data) should be included in the NRC core dataset. * Phase one will consist of at least 2 rounds of voting, with successive rounds of voting undertaken until an a-priori consensus of 70% is reached for all core data items marked as mandatory/critical data in fitting OMERACT guidelines. * After 2 rounds, any data item that have reached consensus will be included in the final dataset. These core domain (data items) will then be excluded from subsequent rounds of voting. * A maximum of 4 rounds will be allowed in Phase 1. At which point the highest-ranking data items remaining with a consensus above 60% from each of the pre-identified categories will be included in the final dataset. * Phase two will explore what tools should be used to collect the core domains (outcome measure instruments) for each category outlined in phase 1. * Phase 2 will follow the same protocol for including outcome measure instruments into the core outcome set as were required to include core data items from phase 1. * If a consensus of equal or greater than 60% cannot be reached using an E-Delphi method in either phase 1 or phase 2 then a virtual meeting will be held amongst all expert panel members to reach consensus using a nominal group technique (phase 3).