# New Remote Care Models in Patients with Spinal Cord Injury: A Systematic Review of the Literature
## 2 Materials and Methods
### Eligibility Criteria and Search Strategy  
Inclusion criteria involved randomized controlled trials (RCTs), or (if no RCT was retrieved) observational studies, in which adult patients, aged 18 years and over, were affected by spinal cord injury, in a stable medical condition and were referred to home care provided by a multidisciplinary team. Intervention considered studies in which remote home care was delivered using apps, online platforms, and electronic devices, all compared with standard in-person care. Pain, neurological bladder control, neurogenic bowel, and the occurrence of pressure ulcers were analyzed as the outcome of the included studies and as factors improving quality of life and reducing the number of hospital admissions. Exclusion criteria were (i) studies that included patients aged <18 years or hospitalized patients or affected by other neurological or psychiatric diseases; (ii) studies with care programs not involving the multidisciplinary team; (iii) studies not in English or Italian; (iv) case report or case series, conference acts, book chapters, pre-clinical studies. Grey literature was not specifically searched (Table 1).  
The search strategy was developed using the P.I.C.O. [24] framework. The conceptual method was used to develop Boolean query and verified with a stakeholder (librarian). Mesh terms were included. The databases searched were PubMed (National Library of Medicine), CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Web of Science (Clarivate, London, UK), Cochrane Library for clinical trials, and Google Scholar (Montain View, CA, USA). The search was conducted on 30 May 2023 (see Supplementary Materials File S1). Forward and backward snowball searching of the included studies was employed for references lists, in addition to including studies of 5 systematic reviews [25; 26; 27; 28; 29] to check for other studies accident  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline  & **Inclusion** & **Exclusion** \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Population:} & Adult patients aged \textgreater{}18 years, with spinal cord & Adolescents (age \textless{} 18 years), hospitalized \\  & injury diagnosis, with stable medical conditions, & patients, other neurological diseases without \\  & and with indication for home care provided by a & SCI etiology, uncooperative patients, and/or \\  & multidisciplinary team & suffering psychiatric disorders \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Intervention:} & Remote home care using applications, online & Care program not involving the \\  & platforms, electronic devices & multidisciplinary team \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Comparator:} & In-person standard care & No comparisons undertaken \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Outcome:} & Pain, neurological bladder control, neurogenic & \\  & intestine, and appearance of pressure lesions. & \\ \cline{1-1}  & Quality of life and reduction in the number of & \\ \cline{1-1}  & accesses to hospital facilities & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 1: Inclusion and exclusion criteria using P.I.C.O. framework.  
tally excluded from the search strings that needed to undergo the previously described screening process.