Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Use in Surgical Care: A Scoping Study

Surgeons recognize the importance of patient reported outcomes in the evaluation of health care. Documenting health related quality of life (HRQOL) can enhance surgical quality improvement efforts. Systematic documentation of HRQOL began in 1963. Currently, multiple varied and unstandardized instruments make it difficult to compare quality of life measures across studies. The NIH developed the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) to provide a standardized assessment designed to complement traditional outcomes measures.

We used systematic scoping methodology to investigate the characteristics of PROMIS use in studies assessing quality of life measures as surgical outcomes.

A systematic search of PubMed revealed 21 publications describing the use of PROMIS to assess surgical outcomes. The 21 study publications reported observations on 2,561 patients. Twenty-nine percent of patients had injuries, 33% had neoplasms, and 38% included other patients having neither injuries nor neoplasms. General surgery/gynecology/plastic surgery had 8 publications, orthopaedic surgery had 9 publications, and neurosurgery had 4 publications. Most studies included additional measures. There were 25 instruments used in addition to PROMIS.

This study revealed that PROMIS performed efficiently, accurately, and reliably in assessing patient-reported HRQOL in multidisciplinary surgical publications.