Patient-reported outcomes: state-of-the-art hand surgery and future applications

Patient-reported outcome measures (PRO) can provide reliable and valid estimates of patient status and response to interventions to complete the final step in an evidence-based patient interaction. A variety of PRO are relevant to upper extremity surgery and rehabilitation outcomes. PRO provide feasible tools for clinical research or practice, although use in clinical decision making lags behind research applications. Recent trends in clinical measurement include better integration of International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health in content validation, more modern methods of evaluating scaling properties (Rasch analysis), consensus exercise on establishing core measures, electronic data collection, and computer-adaptive testing.