More on PROMIS®

The word "PROMIS" stands for "Patient Reported Outcome Measurement System." PROMIS® is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), part of the Federal Government’s Department of Health and Human Services. An important goal of PROMIS is to develop valid, reliable, and standardized questionnaires or tools to measure patient–reported outcomes (PROs).

The PROMIS® questionnaires measure what patients are able to do and how they feel by asking questions. These questions can focus on a mental health topic such as fatigue, anxiety, or physical health topics such as pain, sleep impairment, or topics related to social health such as ability to participate in roles and activities, or a mixture of these. A patient’s answers to a set of questions are calculated into scores that can be used by them and their doctor in improving communication, managing health conditions and designing treatment plans.

PROMIS® is unique from other patient–reported outcome tools in 4 ways:

  1. Comparability–you can compare conditions (like diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure) on individual domains (such as fatigue) because there is a common metric.
  2. Reliability and validity–PROMIS’ questionnaires have been tested to measure a health topic like pain (domain) in a precise and consistent way with patients, and they measure what they are intended to measure. (e.g., a questionnaire on fatigue will ask questions about feeling tired not about feeling pain)
  3. Flexibility–PROMIS® tools can be completed by patients through different methods: paper and pencil, computer, phone, PDAs
  4. Inclusivity–PROMIS® tools can be completed by anyone down to the age of 8 (there is a separate set of questionnaires that can be done by children). The questionnaires are also simply written, can be translated, and be administered to people who have low levels of physical function.

People working under the NIH PROMIS® grant include researchers at different sites across the country and those funded to help them support and coordinate these efforts. The second phase of PROMIS was launched in October, 2009, when 15 new grants were funded to develop new tools to measure patient–reported outcomes (PROs) and to validate the existing ones. The first phase of PROMIS (2004–2009) was focused on creating the current tools that are being used now.