Article

Clinicians need a comprehensive description of patients' functioning state to
capture the complex interaction between symptoms and environmental factors, and
to determine the actual level of functioning in patients in a vegetative state or
a minimally conscious state. The aim of this study is to develop an International
Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) checklist for
patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) so as to capture and describe,
with a tailored list of categories, the most common health, disability, and
functioning issues of adult patients with DOC. The WHO ICF checklist was used as
a basis for collecting data. This was an observational, cross-sectional,
multicenter study conducted in 69 Italian centers. Specific methodological
procedures were used to identify the most appropriate categories for DOC patients
to be added to or deleted from the ICF checklist so as to develop the ICF-DOC
checklist. A total of 566 adult patients were enrolled: 398 in a vegetative state
and 168 in a minimally conscious state. A total of 127 ICF categories reached the
threshold of 20% concerning the presence of a problem: 37 categories from the
body functions chapter, 13 from the body structures chapter, 46 from the
activities and participations chapter, and 31 from the environmental factors
chapter. ICF categories identified in this study can be useful guidelines for
clinicians and researchers to collect data on functioning and disability of adult
patients with DOC. The new ICF-DOC checklist allows monitoring of the effects of
interventions on functional areas and possible changes in each patient in
follow-up studies.

Langue : ANGLAIS