What about the cost to use the measures?

doi:10.1136/bmj.b387

Published 2 February 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b387
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b387

Letters

Patient reported trial outcomes

What about the cost to use the measures?

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

Garratt highlights the standard use of patient reported outcomemeasures in trials.¹ He advocates SF36 but does not mentionthat you must pay to use the measures. For example, from lastyear you must pay for EuroQol EQ-5d if a given trial has morethan 5000 participants.

If CONSORT were to include a list of suggested patient reportedoutcome measures, their application should be without havingto pay a registration fee or fee per patient—at leastfor publicly financed non-commercial research. A review of paymentschemes for the various measures is needed, and it should includethe time to complete the form and control for its contents.

Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b387

Jens M Lauritsen, consultant¹

¹ Orthopaedic Department, Accident Analysis Group, Odense University Hospital, DK5000 Odense C, Denmark

jens.lauritsen@ouh.regionsyddanmark.dk

Competing interests: JML is currently in favour of using EuroQolEQ-5d in clinical studies.