Digital PRO collection methods during chemotherapy: A scoping review of tools, platforms, and psychometric properties

Background Digital delivery of patient-reported outcome (PRO) instruments is rapidly expanding in cancer chemotherapy care. Despite wide deployment, evidence on which platforms are in use and whether digital administration preserves the measurement fidelity of validated instruments remains sparse. This scoping review maps available evidence on digital PRO platforms, instruments, and mode equivalence in chemotherapy settings. Methods A scoping review was conducted following the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Population-Concept-Context framework and reported in accordance with PRISMA-ScR. Four databases, PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and Embase, were searched from January 2000 to April 2026. Eligible studies included adult chemotherapy patients receiving PROs via any digital modality. Data were extracted using a structured charting form and synthesised narratively. Results Sixteen studies (n = 2144 participants; 2018–2026; 10 countries) were included. Mobile applications were the predominant platform (10/16; 63%). The EORTC QLQ-C30 was the most widely used instrument (8 studies); PRO-CTCAE and its adaptations were used in 4 studies. Completion rates ranged from 46% to 100% (mean 79.0%, SD 15.3%); supervised clinic-based delivery consistently yielded higher rates than unsupervised daily reporting. Alert systems were present in 12 of 16 studies (75%). Only two studies (12.5%) formally compared digital versus paper administration of the same instrument, and none used intraclass correlation, Bland-Altman, or kappa analysis to assess mode equivalence. Fourteen of 16 studies (88%) were conducted in high-income settings. Conclusions Digital PRO deployment in chemotherapy settings is largely proceeding without systematic verification of measurement fidelity. Mode equivalence testing, LMIC representation, and standardised reporting are critical gaps. Future studies should pre-specify mode equivalence testing when deploying validated instruments digitally.