Idiographic patient reported outcome measures (I-PROMs) for routine outcome monitoring in psychological therapies: Position paper

Célia M D Sales; Mark Ashworth; Salma Ayis; Michael Barkham; Julian Edbrooke-Childs; Luís Faísca; Jenna Jacob; Dan Xu; Mick Cooper

doi:10.1002/jclp.23319

Idiographic patient reported outcome measures (I-PROMs) for routine outcome monitoring in psychological therapies: Position paper

J Clin Psychol. 2023 Mar;79(3):596-621. doi: 10.1002/jclp.23319. Epub 2022 Feb 22.

Authors

Célia M D Sales¹, Mark Ashworth², Salma Ayis², Michael Barkham³, Julian Edbrooke-Childs⁴, Luís Faísca⁵, Jenna Jacob⁴, Dan Xu⁶, Mick Cooper⁷

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences (FPCEUP), Center for Psychology at the Universidade do Porto (CPUP), University of Porto, Porto, Portugal.
² School of Life Course and Population Sciences, King's College London, Guy's Campus, London, United Kingdom, SE1 1UL, UK.
³ Clinical and Applied Psychology Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
⁴ Anna Freud Centre, Applied Research and Evaluation, The Kantor Centre of Excellence, 4-8 Rodney Street, London, N1 9JH, UK.
⁵ FCHS & Center for Research in Health Technologies and Information, Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal.
⁶ Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China.
⁷ Department of Psychology, University of Roehampton, London, UK.

PMID: 35194799
DOI: 10.1002/jclp.23319

Abstract

Idiographic patient-reported outcome measures (I-PROMs) are a growing set of individualized tools for use in routine outcome monitoring (ROM) in psychological therapies. This paper presents a position statement on their conceptualization, use, and analysis, based on contemporary evidence and clinical practice. Four problem-based, and seven goal-based, I-PROMs, with some evidence of psychometric evaluation and use in psychotherapy, were identified. I-PROMs may be particularly valuable to the evaluation of psychological therapies because of their clinical utility and their alignment with a patient-centered approach. However, there are several challenges for I-PROMs: how to generate items in a robust manner, their measurement model, methods for establishing their reliability and validity, and the meaning of an aggregated I-PROM score. Based on the current state of the literature, we recommend that I-PROMs are used to complement nomothetic measures. Research recommendations are also made regarding the most appropriate methods for analyzing I-PROM data.

Keywords: I-PROMs; idiographic outcomes; measurement model; psychometrics; routine outcome monitoring.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Humans
Patient Reported Outcome Measures*
Psychometrics / methods
Quality of Life*
Reproducibility of Results
Surveys and Questionnaires