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Editorial
Measuring patient-reported outcomes (PROs/PROMs) in people with Achilles tendinopathy: how useful is the VISA-A?
  1. Adrian Mallows1,
  2. Chris Littlewood2,
  3. Peter Malliaras3
  1. 1 School of Health & Human Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
  2. 2 Arthritis Research UK Primary Care Centre Research Institute for Primary Care and Health Sciences and Keele Clinical Trials Unit, David Weatherall Building Keele University, Staffordshire, UK
  3. 3 Department of Physiotherapy, School of Primary Health Care, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Science, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Adrian Mallows, School of Health &Human Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, Essex, CO4 3SQ, UK; amallows{at}essex.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2017-097531

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    It is important for clinicians and researchers to measure outcomes. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are short questionnaires, which are self-reported and designed to capture a person’s perceptions of specified aspects of their health status.1 Conceptually, PROMs can be viewed either as a ‘tool for evaluation’ or as a ‘mechanism for improvement’ suited to the many factors that characterise a person’s health status that cannot be observed, measured with a device or analysed with even the most sophisticated imaging methods.2 Such questionnaires are ideally suited to areas such as tendinopathy where disease impact does not correlate consistently with biomarkers.

    The Victorian Institute of Sport Assessment - Achilles (VISA-A) Questionnaire is a widely used PROM for Achilles tendinopathy and is available in seven different languages (figure 1). The ability of the VISA-A to improve decision making is determined by its reliability, validity and responsiveness to change, as these are essential psychometric properties for any measure.3 4 Here we critically …

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    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.