Table 1.

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion criteria	Rationale
Parents/caregivers (aged ≥18 years of age) of previously healthy children aged ≤4 years who are ready to be discharged from PICU	Age limit required to comply with the Research Governance Framework for Health and Social Care52
Parents/caregivers who have sufficient language skills to read the Participant Information Sheet and to complete the questionnaires in English	Unable to translate study materials into different languages due to limited study resources
Children are included if they: are ≤4 years have received invasive ventilation for 48 hours or more (including at referring hospital if applicable)	To cover children up to school age Used as an indicator of critical illness and seen in adult ICU survivors to affect swallowing and feeding problems10
Exclusion criteria	Rationale
Aged >5 years or older	Age beyond preschool years
Children not invasively ventilated (so no ETT)	Unable to fulfil inclusion criteria
Children with previous feeding difficulties (children who were not fully orally fed prior to PICU admission or have document oral feeding difficulties)	Unable to fulfil inclusion criteria and unable to consume sufficient nutrients orally

ETT, endotracheal tubes; ICU, intensive care unit; PICU, paediatric intensive care unit.