Chapter 18: Patient-reported outcomes

keypoints: Summary data on patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are important to ensure healthcare decision makers are informed about the outcomes most meaningful to patients. Authors of systematic reviews that include PROs should have a good understanding of how patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are developed, including the constructs they are intended to measure, their reliability, validity and responsiveness. Authors should pre-specify at the protocol stage a hierarchy of preferred PROMs to measure the outcomes of interest.