Interpreting Patient-Reported Outcome Measures

Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are valued in healthcare evaluation for bringing patient perspectives forward, and enabling patient-centered care. The range of evidence permitted by PROMs to measure patients’ quality life narrowly denies subjective experience. This neglect is rooted the epistemic assumptions that ground PROMs, tension between standardization (the task measurement) individual unique circumstances patients. To counter resulting methodological shortcomings, this article proposes a hermeutical approach interpretive phenomenology instead generic qualitative research methods.