LETTER TO THE EDITOR A relevant study was missed in our systematic review on the impact of patient-reported outcomes in clinical practice J. M. Valderas Æ A. Kotzeva Æ M. Espallargues Æ G. Guyatt Æ C. E. Ferrans Æ M. Y. Halyard Æ D. A. Revicki Æ T. Symonds Æ A. Parada Æ J. Alonso Published online: 27 June 2008 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008 We thank Dr Pouwer for his interest in our review [1, 2]. Prompted by his claim that four potentially relevant studies might have been missed [3–7], three of the authors of the original paper (J.V., A.K., J.A.) undertook an independent review of the eligibility of the trials based on the standard- ized method described in the paper. The three independently elicited assessments were then discussed and any discrep- ancies were resolved by consensus. For studies to be included in our review they needed to meet all of the inclusion criteria as already listed in the paper. In particular: (a) patients participating in those studies had to be attending a health practitioner’s office, an outpatient clinic, an emer- gency room, or a hospital; (b) the studies had to compare replicable interventions consisting of administration of standardized patient-reported outcomes (PRO) question- naire(s) and subsequent feedback to health care professionals versus routine clinical practice without administration of any PRO measures; and (c) the question- naire results were disclosed only to the clinicians in the intervention group, with or without additional education concerning the optimal application of this information. There was perfect agreement that the studies by Maguire et al., Frasure-Smith and Prince, and Taylor et al., were ineligible for inclusion in our study. In the study by Maguire et al. the intervention was counselling, and PRO instruments were not integrated to improve clinical out- come but rather used for measurement of the impact of the intervention. In the study by Frasure-Smith and Prince, J. M. Valderas National Primary Care Research and Development Center, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK e-mail: jose.valderas@manchester.ac.uk J. M. Valderas Á J. Alonso (&) Health Services Research Unit, Institut Municipal d’Investigacio ´ Me `dica (IMIM-Hospital del Mar), PRBB. Doctor Aiguader, 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain e-mail: jalonso@imim.es e-mail: jose.valderas@manchester.ac.uk A. Kotzeva Á M. Espallargues Á A. Parada Catalan Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Research (CAHTA), Roc Boronat, 81-95, 08005 Barcelona, Spain e-mail: akotzeva@aatrm.catsalut.net M. Espallargues e-mail: mespallargues@aatrm.catsalut.net G. Guyatt McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada e-mail: guyatt@mcmaster.ca C. E. Ferrans College of Nursing (MC 802), University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA M. Y. Halyard Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ, USA D. A. Revicki Center for Health Outcomes Research, United Biosource Corporation, Bethesda, MD, USA T. Symonds Worldwide Outcomes Research (IPC160), Pfizer Global Research and Development, Kent, UK J. Alonso Department of Experimental and Life Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain 123 Qual Life Res (2008) 17:965–966 DOI 10.1007/s11136-008-9367-9