In-depth video-recorded interviews with 22 family members of severely brain-injured patient, exploring people's experiences of having a son, daughter, sibling, partner, parent or other relative in a vegetative or minimally conscious state. Increasing numbers of people are now surviving after severe brain injuries which leave them with chronic disorders of consciousness, ie in ‘vegetative’ or ‘minimally conscious’ states.Their families face many challenges including: complex diagnostic and prognostic information; uncertainty about the future; difficult treatment decisions; profound moral and emotional dilemmas. This initiative builds on (and will extend) our existing data base of in-depth research interviews with families of brain-injured patients in order to create support and information tools. We are video-recording interviews extracts from which will be available on the publicly available web-based resource HealthTalkOnline. This work is part of a broader project addressing serious brain injury conducted by the Cardiff-York Chronic Disorders of Consciousness Research Groups.

This project involved collecting and analysing video-­recorded in-­ depth interviews with 22 family members of severely brain-­injured patients, exploring people's experiences of having a son, daughter, sibling, partner, parent or other relative in a vegetative or minimally conscious state. The new video-‐recorded interviews were added to an already-­existing data set of audio-­recorded interviews (partially funded by a Wellcome grant) making 65 family interviewees in total.