Patient assessments of scarring: patient-reported impact of scars measure or patient scar assessment questionnaire?

摘要

I would like to commend Brown et al. for their rigorous approach in developing the Patient-Reported Impact of Scars Measure, a patient-reported outcomes measure on the impact of scarring; however, I would like to challenge their assertion that this is "the first scar-specific patient-reported outcome measure to assess the impact of scars from the patient's perspective for use in clinical settings, research, and trials." A comprehensive review of the literature would have highlighted our group's own endeavors in producing a validated patient-reported measure for scar, the Patient Scar Assessment Questionnaire (using an alternative but widely accepted traditional technique based on classic test theory) and the subsequent publication of that work in this very Journal It is important to assess in which situations each of the two measures is more appropriate, if investigators decide to use one or the other.