83 Professionals’ perspectives of a Challenging Rehabilitation Environment Recruitment of Participants Participants were eligible if they had recent experience in the field of (geriatric) rehabilitation and were willing to sign an informed consent form after receiving verbal and written information on the study. During the recruitment phase, we aimed at obtaining input from different professional disciplines in the broad field of rehabilitation, e.g., medical doctors, physical therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, speech and language therapists, and nurses, as well as researchers in the field of GR. Recruitment for the focus groups was split into three target audiences: experts, (para)medics, and nursing staff. This subdivision was made to ensure that all participants were able to express their perspectives, regardless of educational or hierarchical issues. At the start of the study, we composed a list of 31 Dutch national experts in the field of (geriatric) rehabilitation. These experts were invited by email to participate and were asked to supplement the list with names of people they regarded as experts. This resulted in a list of 38 people who were invited to participate in these focus groups. Furthermore, an international focus group was established with non-Dutch members of the Special Interest Group Geriatric Rehabilitation (SIG GR) of the European Geriatric Medicine Society (EuGMS).16 Fourteen members were asked via email to participate in a focus group during the EuGMS congress 2019 in Krakow. The audience of the symposium of SIG GR at this congress was also invited to participate in this focus group. Organizations affiliated with the six academic networks for elderly care in the Netherlands were approached by email with information about this study.17 They were asked to participate in this study and to delegate professionals working in the rehabilitation field to attend the focus groups. 4
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