Toward an Understanding of Patient Outcome Measurement

✍ Scribed by James F. Fries

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1983
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 753 KB
• Volume: 26
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0004-3591
• DOI: 10.1002/art.1780260601

✦ Synopsis

It is difficult to objectively measure the effects of arthritis or its treatment, and agreement on satisfactory endpoints has not been reached. Each proposed measure, from ring size to 50-foot walking time to articular index, has had its several proponents and its many critics. Now, new questionnaire-based instruments attempting to measure patient "outcome" have appeared (1-7), couched in an unfamiliar jargon and using suspicious terms such as "quality of life." These questionnaires, it is implied, measure the truly important things. Yet the supporting literature is often dull and hard to understand, and it is difficult to tell what is science and what is self-serving. As new articles appear in the literature and more investigators include such measures in their studies, an evaluation of outcome measurement appears timely. This report attempts to describe the present state of the art, the future directions, and the emerging problems, and to suggest potential applications.

A RATIONAL BASIS FOR OUTCOME MEASUREMENT

Five distinctions are important in order to understand the rationale of outcome measurement.