Validation of Patient-Reported Outcomes: A Low Bar
It used to be that if we wanted to assess a patient’s back pain, we would evaluate how far the patient could bend by measuring the distance between the patient’s fingers and the floor. Adverse effects of a drug were evaluated by collating clinicians’ impressions. The outcomes of many trials of mental health were obtained by counting hospital readmissions. We went into medicine to help patients feel better, but rarely asked how anyone was feeling at all. Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) first started to
