Spectrum of topics for World Congresses and other activities of the International Society for Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (ISPRM): a first proposal.

Background: One of the objectives of the International Society for Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine is to improve the continuity of World Congresses. This requires the development of an abstract topic list for use in congress announcements and abstract submissions.

Methods: An abstract topic list was developed on the basis of the definitions of human functioning and rehabilitation research, which define 5 main areas of research (biosciences in rehabilitation, biomedical rehabilitation sciences and engineering, clinical Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (PRM) sciences, integrative rehabilitation sciences, and human functioning sciences). For the abstract topic list, these research areas were grouped according to the proposals of congress streams. In a second step, the first version of the list was systematically compared with the topics of the 2003 ISPRM World Congress.

Results: The resulting comprehensive abstract topic list contains 5 chapters according to the definition of human functioning and rehabilitation research. Due to the high significance of clinical research, clinical PRM sciences were placed at the top of the list, comprising all relevant health conditions treated in PRM services. For congress announcements a short topic list was derived.

Discussion: The ISPRM topic list is sustainable and covers a full range of topics. It may be useful for congresses and elsewhere in structuring research in PRM.