Purpose of review: Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) represent a valuable means of assessing the impact of spine surgery on various aspects of patient function and quality of life. This review highlights the most common and contemporary PROMs used in degenerative cervical and lumbar spine conditions, adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, and adult spinal deformity.
Recent findings: Available PROMs differ in their comprehensiveness, flexibility, and ease of use, as well as their ability to provide prognostic information. Condition-specific PROMs such as the Scoliosis Research Society-22 and Modified Japanese Orthopedic Association offer the benefit of prompts tailored to capture the unique considerations for a particular disease state, while more generalized metrics such as the Short-Form 36 facilitate widespread PROM standardization permitting comparison between disease states and interventions. Newer PROMS such as the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System and the Patient Generated Index offer benefits due to their generalizable yet adaptable format, conferring them the potential to capture condition-specific factors while still permitting comparison between diseases. However, these instruments require further adaptations and validation prior to widespread implementation to fully realize these advantages. Many PROMs are available for use in the spine surgery population, each with unique benefits and drawbacks, necessitating careful evaluation when selecting PROMs for research use.
Keywords: Cervical myelopathy; Lumbar spine; Patient-reported outcome measures; Quality of life; Spinal deformity; Spine surgery.
© 2025. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.