Recovery From Disability After Geriatric-home Rehabilitation Versus Standard of Care: Pilot Study

The number of potential participants screened/not screened for inclusion.

The number of (potential) participants recruited/not recruited, randomised and retained (frequency and proportion of participants that are randomized and completed 6w follow up).

Potential participants' reasons for refusing to participate (qualitative), expressed in frequency per reason for declining participation.

Assessment will focus on the timeliness and practicality of the randomisation, assessment and the data collection in the participants' home, processing and managing the data and study administration. This endpoint is assessed through interviewing study staff about their experiences.

Semi-structured interviews with participants, assessing how the intervention did or did not meet their needs, intervention elements they did or did not appreciate, their perceived adherence to the therapy sessions, the level of difficulty of intervention elements in relation to their level of disability, the support from their therapist, the perceived benefit or lack thereof, their reasons for engaging or discontinuing the intervention, and reasons for (not) recommending the intervention to others in the same position.

Interviews with physical therapists, addressing feasibility with a view to alternative elements of the intervention, the target group, the setting and their professional capabilities and limitations. Questions will also explore their experience with the adherence of the participants, and their perceptions regarding factors that influenced this.

Demographic information

The study nurses and medical doctors participating in the study will log the time they spend on the study in an electronic logbook. This will be done for patient 5 to 12 at each site. Time will be recorded in minutes per day, and will be stratified for screening, informed consent, randomisation, baseline visit, visit at 6 weeks follow-up, administration, and other. Data will be gathered up to six weeks when the intervention protocol is completed and follow-up data at six weeks are gathered. The endpoint will be expressed as the median time to complete the study procedures per participant.

Audio recorded interviews using open-ended questions will focus on understanding how persons experience study participation and which aspects of the study might be perceived as hindrances or barriers in relation to their daily lives.Second, a modified version of the Perceived Research Burden Assessment instrument (5-point Likert scales) is used to quantify the study burden for individual participants.

Structured interviews, focusing on understanding how they experienced screening for eligibility and how this could be disruptive for their daily practice.

Physical therapists' experiences with the training needed to deliver the rehabilitation protocol will be assessed in a structured interview. Interview questions will focus on the format, the delivery, the content, and the duration of the training. Participants will also be asked to suggest changes or improvements. The interview is performed online and after completion of the training, and is audio recorded.

Structured interview addressing for which participants the study nurses feel they know, suspect or do not know to which group a person was randomized, and -if relevant- how they found out. Nurses' ideas of group allocation will be checked against the actual group allocation. This information will be used to construct a Blinding Index. This endpoint will be expressed as the frequency and proportion of participants where blinding was not achieved.