Use of Patient-Reported Outcomes in the Context of Different Levels of Data*

Update This article was updated on January 25, 2012, because of a previous error. In the EQ-5D subsection of the Methods section on page 68, the sentence that had previously read “This, in addition to limited responsiveness for some conditions, has to be weighed against the inherent low response rate of the instrument.” now reads “This, in addition to limited responsiveness for some conditions, has to be weighed against the inherent low respondent burden of the instrument.” There is increasing interest in measuring patient-reported outcomes as part of routine medical practice, particularly in fields like total joint replacement surgery, where pain relief, satisfaction, function, and health-related quality of life, as perceived by the patient, are primary outcomes. We review some well-known outcome instruments, measurement issues, and early experiences with large-scale collection of patient-reported outcome measures in joint registries. The patient-reported outcome measures are reviewed in the context of multidimensional outcome assessment that includes the traditional clinical outcome parameters as well as disease-specific and general patient-reported outcome measures.