Simplified evaluation of consciousness disorders (SECONDs)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Validation of the Simplified evaluation of consciousness disorders (SECONDs) scale in English
IRAS ID
308270
Contact name
Damian Cruse
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
The Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R) is one of the main diagnostic scales for patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDOC) recommended by the Royal College of Physicians because of its excellent content validity and its inclusion of all minimally conscious state (MCS) criteria. It is, however, time-demanding, whereas recent recommendations highlight the importance of repeating CRS-R assessments. The time that should be allocated by clinicians to these evaluations is rarely available in the clinical field, which stresses the need for a new short behavioural tool to diagnose PDOC. Indeed, more frequent assessment would capture variability and increase total data for better diagnostic certainty. The international validation of such a scale thus represents one of the next crucial milestones in the field of PDOC.
To this end, our collaborators at the Coma Science Group (GIGA-Consciousness, University of Liège) developed the Simplified Evaluation of CONsciousness Disorders (SECONDs). This scale focuses on the five most frequent signs of consciousness observed in PDOC as assessed by the CRS-R (i.e., reproducible movement to command, visual pursuit, visual fixation, automatic motor response and localization to pain), as well as communication abilities and arousal. The SECONDs has been validated in French in 57 patients with PDOC and showed that the administration duration of the SECONDs (i.e., median time of 7 min) was 2.5 times faster than the CRS-R (i.e., median time of 17 min) and that its agreement with the CRS-R was very good (kappa coefficients ranging from 0.78 to 0.85). This promising new tool now needs to be validated in English so that it can be incorporated more readily into clinical practise in the UK.REC name
West Midlands - Coventry & Warwickshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/WM/0215
Date of REC Opinion
5 Dec 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion