Rehabilitation interventions in children and adults with infectious encephalitis: a systematic review protocol

INTRODUCTION: Many encephalitis survivors can benefit from rehabilitation. However, there is currently no comprehensive review describing rehabilitation intervention outcomes among children and adults with infectious encephalitis. This is a protocol for a systematic review that will summarise the current literature on outcomes following rehabilitative interventions among children and adults with infectious encephalitis. With a sufficient sample size, a sex-stratified analysis of the findings will also be presented, as variability between male and female patients with neurological disorders, including encephalitis, regarding outcomes after rehabilitative interventions has been noted in the literature. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This review will systematically search MEDLINE, MEDLINE In-Process, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and PsycINFO using the concepts ‘encephalitis’ and ‘rehabilitation’. Grey literature will be searched using Grey Matters: A practical search tool for evidence-based medicine and the Google search engine. In addition, reference lists of eligible articles will be screened for any relevant studies. 2 reviewers will independently evaluate the retrieved studies based on predetermined eligibility criteria and perform a quality assessment on eligible studies. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The results from this review hold the potential to advance our knowledge on the value of rehabilitative interventions targeting children and adults with infectious encephalitis and any sex differences among patients with regard to rehabilitative intervention outcomes. The authors will publish findings from this review in a peer-reviewed scientific journal (electronic and in-print) and present the results at national and international conferences. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42015029217.