Phenomenology: A Method for the Interpretation of Patient-Reported Outcomes

Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) play a central role in clinical research and patient care resulting in a plethora of standardized PROMs to measure a range of constructs, including disease symptoms, health-related quality of life, and health status (Meadows/Reaney) used in a range of settings, including the nursing environment. However, the use of PROMs in drug development and their use in healthcare evaluation do not easily marry together. In drug development, standardization of measurement is key to the interpretation of the formation at a population level with minimal biases. However, in health care, the individual patient perspective, priority, and needs should be taken into account whereas, in the clinical encounter, one has to also deal with what is particular and unique. The purpose of this paper is to describe the characteristics of the phenomenological method as a means within a mixed-method framework, to supplement participants' patient-reported outcome numeric scores with a more in-depth commentary on the essence of the lived health experiences.