Do PROMS improve outcomes in patients with depression in primary care?

Abstract

### What you need to know Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) are questionnaires or brief interviews assessing patients’ symptoms, social functioning, and health related quality of life.1 PROMs provide feedback on patients’ responses to treatment, so healthcare practitioners may then adjust treatment or refer for alternative interventions.1 Their use in the assessment of severity of depression and monitoring is widely promoted in primary care, psychological therapy, and mental healthcare settings in the UK, US, and Europe (box 1). In the NHS England Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, PROMs for depression, anxiety, and social functioning are routinely administered at every treatment session.2 Box 1 ### Organisations recommending the use of PROMs for monitoring outcomes in the treatment of depressionRETURN TO TEXT PROMs are relatively quick surrogate measures for longer, interview-based assessments of symptoms and functioning. PROMs provide standardised results, readily understandable to other practitioners, and to patients themselves after brief explanations of their meaning. Similar measures can be used to screen for depression and aid …