Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs)

Other pages in this section:

• How to start collecting PROM data in practice
• Patient Reported Outcome Measures in osteopathy
• Development of a PROM app for osteopaths
• FAQ about data collection

What are PROMs?

To collect data in your practice using the PROM app you need a set of codes to give to your patients. Please contact Carol Fawkes (c.fawkes@qmul.ac.uk) so these can be created for your practice and sent to you with an information pack.

A Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) has been defined as “a report coming directly from patients about how they feel or function in relation to a health condition and its therapy without interpretation by healthcare professionals or anyone else” (Patrick et al, 2008).

Why are PROMs important?

PROMs and Patient Experience Measures (PREMs) represent an important part of assessing whether osteopaths and other healthcare professionals are improving the symptoms reported by their patients.  PROMs and PREMs attempt to identify:

• if treatment has improved a patient’s symptoms;
• if treatment has improved a patient’s health and well-being;
• if patients are satisfied with treatment;
• the type of experience of care patients have received at the practice.

Different types of PROMs are available depending on why a patient has sought treatment.  These are discussed in the next section.

Are there different types of PROMs?

A variety of different outcome measures exist which differ in both content and application.  They have been classified generally into a range of different domains:

• Disease-specific  e.g. the Rotator Cuff-Quality Of Life (RC-QOL)
• Population-specific  e.g. Child Health and Illness Profile – Child Edition (CHP-CE)
• Dimension-specific  e.g. Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)
• Generic  e.g. SF-36
• Individualised  e.g. Patient Generated Index
• Summary items  e.g. UK General Lifestyle Survey questions about accidents
• Utility measures  e.g. EuroQol

(Source: University of Oxford PROM Group).       

What types of outcome measure exist?

A range of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) are commonly used in musculoskeletal practice.  Information concerning these PROMs is given below:

• The Bournemouth questionnaire (BQ)
• The EuroQol (EQ5-D)
• The Oswestry Disability questionnaire (ODQ)
• The Roland Morris questionnaire (RMQ)
• The Standard McGill pain questionnaire (MPQ) (Information coming soon)
• The Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ)
• Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) (Information coming soon)
• Global Health Question (Information coming soon)
• Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ9)
• Likert Scale (Information coming soon)
• Chronic Pain Grade (Information coming soon)
• Hospital Anxiety and Depression questionnaire (HADS)
• MYMOP
• SF-36

Information concerning additional outcome measures will be added in due course.

How do I collect outcome/PROM data in my practice?

A system for collection of PROM data has been developed by Osteopaths.  This developmental work has been funded by the Institute of Osteopathy.  To access this facility, please go here.

Further sources of information

Information concerning PROMs can be found in a variety of different places.

PROM databases:

• Oxford University PROM database http://phi.uhce.ox.ac.uk/perl/phig/phidb_search.pl
• CAMbase: http://cambase.dmz.uni-wh.de/CiXbase/camdb/index_en.html
• IN-CAM Outcomes database http://www.incamresearch.ca/node/153

References

Patrick DL, Guyatt GH, Acquadro C on behalf of the Cochrane Patient Reported Outcomes Methods Cochrane Review Group. (2008).  Patient Reported Outcomes.  Ch. 17.  http://hiv.cochrane.org/sites/hiv.cochrane.org/files/uploads/Ch17_PRO.pdf

University of Oxford Patient Reported Outcome Measurement Group http://phi.uhce.ox.ac.uk/inst_types.php (Accessed 20.04.2015)