Capsule Commentary on Monahan et al., Development and Feasibility of SymTrak, a Multi-Domain Tool for Monitoring Symptoms of Older Adults in Primary Care

摘要

Symptoms are the most common reason patients seek medical attention. Even after evaluation, up to one third of symptoms remain medically unexplained. Monahan and colleagues report on the development and feasibility of SymTrak for monitoring symptoms. SymTrak consists of 25 questions that were selected from measures that have a long track record of being reliable and valid, including PROMIS, the Somatic Symptom Scale, the PHQ-15, PHQ-9, GAD-7, the PEG pain scale, and the Healthy Aging Brain Care monitor. The goal of the instrument is to provide clinicians a method of quickly measuring the nature and impact of symptoms in older primary care patients. Probably no one has done more than one of the co-authors of this paper, Kurt Kroenke, to develop instruments that clinicians use in daily practice to assess for symptoms (PHQ-15), Depression (PHQ-9), and Anxiety (GAD-7).