ArticleQuality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation2026
Assessing content validity: challenges of conducting systematic reviews of patient-reported outcome measures and recommendations to improve the application of COSMIN guidance.
Article in Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Systematic Review of the Psychometric Quality of Instruments for Assessing Adverse Childhood Experiences.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Hypoxia-regulated non-coding RNAs in OSCC liquid biopsy: from molecular mechanisms to AI-driven precision oncology.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeSystematic reviews of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) are essential for selecting appropriate measures for research and clinical practice. The COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) guidelines provide a standardised framework for evaluating measurement properties of PROMs, with content validity considered to be the most important property, yet the most complex and poorly reported. This study aimed to report common challenges researchers face when evaluating content validity in systematic reviews on the quality of PROMs, and to provide clear, experience-informed recommendations to overcome them.
methodA narrative synthesis of challenges in evaluating content validity in systematic reviews of PROMs is presented. Challenges were extracted from Elsman et al.’s umbrella review and from stakeholder consultations with the authors of this manuscript, providing practical recommendations and illustrative examples.
resultsSeven challenges were identified: (1) feasibility of conducting a systematic review on the quality of PROMs, (2) identifying all articles describing PROM development for the target population, (3) managing different versions of PROMs, (4) poor reporting in primary studies (5) ambiguity in classifying studies as PROM development or content validity studies, (6) applying the criteria for content validity, specifically, to the results of development studies, and (7) accurately framing the scope of the PROM and the review. Recommendations include narrowing the scope of the review, conducting supplementary searches, treating PROM versions distinctly, and guidance on how to interpret poorly reported studies.
conclusionThese insights support consistent application of COSMIN guidelines and improve PROM selection and use, complementing existing COSMIN materials.
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