A questionnaire capturing the patient's own view of their health.
A Patient-Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) is a validated questionnaire that captures how a patient rates their own symptoms, function or quality of life, without the clinician filtering or interpreting the response. In musculoskeletal care this usually means standardised pain and function scores completed directly by the patient, rather than a therapist's clinical impression of progress.
PROMs give clinicians a way to check whether what they're measuring in clinic matches what actually matters to the patient, which isn't always the same thing as range of motion, strength, or imaging findings. They inform decisions such as whether to progress, discharge, refer on, or change tack, and give a shared, numerical reference point for conversations about progress with the patient and with other services or funders.
PROMs are typically administered at baseline and at set intervals (for example pre- and post-treatment, or at fixed follow-up points) using a standardised, validated tool appropriate to the condition or body region. Scores are compared over time against established thresholds such as the minimal clinically important difference (MCID) where available, so that change can be judged as clinically meaningful rather than just statistically different.
PROMs rely on self-report, so they are vulnerable to recall bias, response shift, floor and ceiling effects, and the patient's mood or expectations on the day, meaning a single score should never be interpreted in isolation. They can also be misused when compared across incompatible populations or tools, when completed by proxy rather than the patient, or when treated as a substitute for clinical reasoning rather than one input alongside it.
This guide was auto-drafted and is pending editorial review.