Editorial Commentary: Designing Patient-Reported Outcome Measures That Have High Clinical Utility and Minimum Responder Burden: When Less Is More.

Abstract

Patient-reported outcome measures provide important information regarding the subjective status of a patient's health. Preference is often given to the use of condition-specific measures for symptoms, pain, and function, although it is also recognized that measures pertaining to quality of life and psychological status are highly relevant. The challenge is to develop a comprehensive set of outcome measures that do not overly burden the patient. The development of short-form versions of commonly used scales plays an important part in this endeavor. Of note, such short forms show a remarkable degree of data consilience for different injury types and patient samples. This suggests that there are a core set of responses, specifically psychological responses, that are relevant to patients who desire to return to sport, irrespective of the type of injury or condition. Moreover, patient-reported outcomes are highly useful when they inform other relevant outcomes. Recent research shows that relevant patient-reported outcome scores in the shorter term predict return to sport in the longer term, which is of high clinical utility. Finally, psychological factors are potentially modifiable, and scores allowing early identification of patients who may find the resumption of sport challenging allow intervention with a goal of improving the final outcome.