Outcomes

Outcomes

Scope

The Outcomes Working Group has six main areas within its scope: core outcome sets, methodology to assess the reliability and robustness of new instruments, surrogate outcome measures, harms, the reporting of outcomes and raising awareness of ordinal outcomes and promoting their correct use.

Future objectives

Future plans for this Working Group include

  • the completion of a systematic review of published core outcome sets (COS)
  • the population, maintenance and enhancement of the COMET (Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials) database
  • evaluation of the uptake of COS (including in electronic patient records) and
  • research into methods for developing and implementing COS.

Members of the Working Group who are part of the COMET Initiative are working with the COSMIN (COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments) group to advise COS developers on how to choose measurement instruments for outcomes in COS.

Other activities include research into how feasibility studies and qualitative research can inform outcome measurement, and best practices for incorporating Patient Reported Outcomes into clinical trials.