Assessing Rehabilitation Outcomes after Severe Neuromusculoskeletal Injury: Development of Patient Reported Outcomes Assessment Instruments

Currently, there is a paucity of patient reported outcomes PRO measures of secondary health effects and complications that result from neuromusculoskeletal injuries, which greatly limits the clinical care and successful rehabilitation, reintegration, and return to dutywork of injured individuals. This study will create valid, standardized, psychometrically robust, and clinically useful PRO measures for traits and symptoms relevant to understanding quality of life and the health and rehabilitation outcomes of Wounded Warriors and civilians with neuromusculoskeletal trauma. Furthermore, this study will develop clinical score reports in an actionable format to improve the clinical workflow and standard of care for individuals with traumatic limb injuries. During the first year, major accomplishments were achieved on three essential initial components of this project 1 finalizing item pools in preparation for all data collection activities, 2 developing a research infrastructure to carry out data collection activities, and 3 regulatory and administrative approvals. Human subjects regulatory approvals have been obtained at UD and at 4 collaborating sites. A total of 838 items were developed, 582 newly written and 256 curated from other well-validated measures. These underwent internal scientific review and expert content review and were winnowed to 579 items across 12 topic areasitem pools. The data collection platforms have been developed and data collection can now commence.