PROMs are standardised questionnaires that patients complete in order to report the status of their health. PROMs ensure that patients’ views are included in the assessment of services, research and treatment decision-making. They have been through rigorous testing where they are intended for. This ensures that PROMs are effective at measuring the aspects of health that they aim to capture. 

We have conducted two systematic reviews of PROMs used in burns research with adults, and children or young people. 

These reviews concluded that a variety of PROMs have been used with burns patients in the past. However, most of these were not specific to the needs of people with burns, none had been developed in the UK, many had not been developed with input of people whose lives have been affected by burn injuries and the extent to which they had been appropriately tested varied considerably. 

Therefore, the reviews demonstrated that there was a need for burn-specific PROMs to be developed in collaboration with people affected by burn injuries for use in the UK. 

Each year around 250,000 people in the UK alone suffer a brain injury (National Burn Care Review, 2001). A burn injury of any size can have a significant psychological and social impact and can result in a number of ongoing challenges for those affected, including pain, trauma, anxiety about social situations, and appearance-related concerns (Lawrence, et al, 2012). 

It is important for health care professionals and researchers working with burns patients and their families to have a clear understanding of how their lives have been affected by the injury and any resulting scarring. PROMs can help health professionals and researchers to become aware of patients’ needs and therapeutic progress. 

However, collecting PROMs data has not been standard practice in the NHS Burns Service so, in 2013, the National Burn Care Standards recommended the development of new burns-specific PROMs.