Patient-reported and proxy-reported outcome measures for the assessment of health-related quality of life among patients receiving enteral feeding: a systematic review protocol Ingeborg Simpelaere 1,2,3  Anne White 4  Geertruida E. Bekkering 5,6  Bart Geurden 5,6,7  Gwen Van Nuffelen 8,9  Marc De Bodt 8,9,10 1 Department Paramedical Professions, VIVES University College, Bruges, Belgium, 2 Department Speech-Language Pathology, AZ Delta, Menen, Belgium, 3 University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, 4 Department of Experimental Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, 5 Belgian Interuniversity Collaboration for Evidence-based Practice (BICEP): an Affiliate Center of the Joanna Briggs Institute, 6 Belgian Center for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBAM): an Affiliate Center of the Joanna Briggs Institute, 7 Centre for Research and Innovation in Care (CRIC), University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, 8 Department of Otolaryngology and Rehabilitation Centre for Communication Disorders, Antwerp University Hospital, Antwerp, Belgium, 9 Department of Translational Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, and 10 Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Review question/objective: The objective is to systematically review the psychometric properties and the clinical utility of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and proxy-reported outcome measures that assess health- related quality of life (HRQoL) among patients receiving enteral feeding to make recommendations for use in clinical practice and research. The purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate the psychometric properties and the clinical utility of:  Measures to assess HRQoL among patients receiving enteral feeding, regardless the cause of receiving enteral feeding.  Measures to assess HRQoL in the subgroup ‘‘patients receiving enteral feeding as a consequence of dysphagia’’.  Measures (1 and 2) that are completed by patients’ proxy to assess HRQoL among patients receiving enteral feeding. The research question is: What are the psychometric properties and the clinical utility of these measures? We will summarize evidence on the following properties: validity (content validity, criterion-related validity, construct validity, floor and ceiling effects), reliability (reproducibility and internal consistency) and responsiveness and clinical utility (interpretability and feasibility to complete the PROM and the proxy-reported outcome measure). Keywords Enteral feeding; patient-reported outcome measures; quality of life; validity Background P atient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) can be used to assess patients’ health-related quality of life (HRQoL) from the patients’ perspect- ive. 1 The Food and Drug Administration of the US Department of Health and Human Services defines PROMs as ‘‘any report of the status of a patient’s health condition that comes directly from the patient, without interpretation of the patient’s response by a clinician or anyone else’’. 2(p.2) There- fore, PROMs can be used to measure patients’ own perceptions of their health status, 1,3 HRQoL 1,3 and individual treatment effects. 4 However, self-report- ing can be problematic or impossible for some patients. 5 In these situations, proxy-reported out- come measures may be used for the assessment of the patient’s HRQoL as the proxies can provide relevant information about how they think the patient would report on his or her HRQoL. Patient-reported and proxy-reported outcome measures are also used in Correspondence: Ingeborg Simpelaere, ingeborg.simpelaere@vives.be There are no conflicts of interest in this project. DOI: 10.11124/JBISRIR-2016-002982 JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports ß 2016 THE JOANNA BRIGGS INSTITUTE 45 SYSTEMATIC REVIEW PROTOCOL ©2016 Joanna Briggs Institute. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.