Patient-based measures of outcome in plastic surgery: current approaches and future directions.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate current approaches to patient-based outcome measurement in plastic surgery and make recommendations for future research. METHODS: Comprehensive review of the plastic surgery literature relevant to patient-based outcomes. RESULTS: Two main types of patient-based outcome measure have been used in the plastic surgery literature: generic and disease-specific. The majority of studies using generic measures investigate aspects of psychological functioning with fewer studies focussing on wider aspects of health-related quality of life. Disease-specific measures are mainly used to assess symptoms. However, almost all of these are ad-hoc measures produced for a particular study, with no psychometric evaluation. CONCLUSIONS: There is a lack of psychometrically sound measures, and there is scope for improvement in methodology used in plastic surgery research. The development and psychometric testing of new plastic surgery specific measures is encouraged.