Table 2.

Review eligibility criteria including the extended PICOTS framework for reviews of complex interventions

Study characteristic	Inclusion criteria	Exclusion criteria
Patient population (P)	Adults undergoing spinal surgical procedures; Paediatric population undergoing spinal surgical procedures;	Patients undergoing non-surgical management of spinal conditions; Spinal trauma patients;
Intervention-treatment(I)	Twenty-two pre-defined components of an ERSS pathway (as outlined in Table 1) alone or in combination with another component; Other proposed ERSS pathways incorporating one or more pre-defined interventions will be included;
Comparator(C)	Standard of care, no treatment or placebo;
Outcomes(O)	•Mortality from all causes; •Morbidity including: pulmonary, cardiac and renal complication rates, surgical complication rates (including readmissions); •Patient reported experiences and outcomes (PROMs/PREMS): pain-related outcomes (e.g. pain score rating, pain management satisfaction), quality of care (readiness for surgery, quality of care patient scores, quality of recovery after surgery); •Health service-related outcomes: length of stay (in hospital, in ICU)and economic/financial outcome;
Timing	Perioperative process-preadmission, preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative setting;	Studies incorporating long-term (greater than 3 months) postoperative rehabilitation;
Study design	Systematic reviews, meta-analysis Randomized controlled trials Non-randomized studies Observational studies (cohort studies, case-control studies, cross-sectional studies, case series);	Case reports;
Study setting	Inpatient care (including patients whose condition requires admission to a hospital same day discharge surgical);	Outpatient clinics, medical and non-surgical management of spinal conditions;