Selection Path of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures:a Case Study of Selecting an Activities of Daily Living Scale for Chinese Patients with Low Back Pain

Patient-reported outcome measures(PROMs)are tools for evaluating and quantifying patient-reported outcomes, and qualified measurement properties is a basic prerequisite for their application. There have been a large number of PROMs, whose measurement properties have not been evaluated standardly and comprehensively, so how to select an appropriate PROM has become one problem that needs to be solved urgently in clinical research. COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments(COSMIN)are designed to help researchers and medical workers choose the most appropriate outcome measurement. Referring to the COSMIN, we attempted to explore the selection path of PROMs for Chinese patients via showcasing the process of selecting an activities of daily living scale for Chinese low back pain patients. We found that the path for selecting an PROM includes five main steps:(1)acomprehensive retrieval to determine the presence of targeted PROMs;(2)development of new PROMs or cross-cultural adaption of foreign PROMs;(3)research on measurement properties;(4)systematic review of the properties;(5)optimization of current PROMs. In particular, system review of the propertiesis emphasized as the critical step. Meanwhile, the selection of PROMs is not overnight, but a circular and forward process.