The importance of patient-reported outcomes in clinical trials and strategies for future optimization

Rebecca Mercieca-Bebber; Madeleine T King; Melanie J Calvert; Martin R Stockler; Michael Friedlander

doi:10.2147/PROM.S156279

The importance of patient-reported outcomes in clinical trials and strategies for future optimization

Patient Relat Outcome Meas. 2018 Nov 1:9:353-367. doi: 10.2147/PROM.S156279. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Rebecca Mercieca-Bebber¹, Madeleine T King^{2

3}, Melanie J Calvert^{4

5}, Martin R Stockler¹, Michael Friedlander^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia, rebecca.mercieca@sydney.edu.au; michael.friedlander@health.nsw.gov.au.
² Central Clinical School, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
³ School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
⁴ Centre for Patient-Reported Outcomes Research and NIHR Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK.
⁵ Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK.
⁶ Prince of Wales Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia, michael.friedlander@health.nsw.gov.au.

Abstract

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) can be included in clinical trials as primary or secondary endpoints and are increasingly recognized by regulators, clinicians, and patients as valuable tools to collect patient-centered data. PROs provide unique information on the impact of a medical condition and its treatment from the patient's perspective; therefore, PROs can be included in clinical trials to ensure the impact of a trial intervention is comprehensively assessed. This review first discusses examples of how PRO endpoints have added value to clinical trial interpretation. Second, it describes the problems with current practices in designing, implementing, and reporting PRO studies, and how these problems may be addressed by complying with guidance for protocol development, selecting appropriate PRO measures to match clinically motivated PRO hypotheses, minimizing the rates of avoidable missing PRO data, analyzing and interpreting PRO data, and transparently reporting PRO findings.

Keywords: clinical trials as topic; patient-reported outcomes; quality of life; research practices; trial conduct.

Publication types

Review