Patient‐reported outcomes (PROs) versus patient‐reported outcome measures (PROMs)—Is there a difference?

摘要

We all agree that patient‐reported outcomes (PROs) in clinical researchare important and relevant and that investigators should strive to incorporate patient experiences in future trials. I recently witnessed a verbalencounter where several colleagues reiterated very passionately thatwe needed to adopt the term patient‐reported outcome measure(PROM) as a more proper term than simply PRO. Being a non‐nativeEnglish speaker, I struggle to reconcile that PROs and PROMs can besynonyms, and I fail to understand why colleagues and Wikipediadeclare that "the term PROs is becoming increasingly synonymous with‘patient‐reported outcome measures' (PROMs)" (Wikipedia, 2018). Afew attempts to solicit a logical rationalization have been unsuccessful.Hence, I wonder if not the blend of the two terms are most likely theresult of a Humpty‐dumpty approach to semantic definition, whichought to raise some cautious concerns: "When I use a word," HumptyDumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose itto mean ‐ neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whetheryou can make words mean so many different things." "The question is,"said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all." (Carroll, 1872).