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Context: Current evidence suggests that a low percentage of athletic trainers (ATs) routinely use patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). An understanding of the perceptions of ATs who use (AT-USE) and who do not use (AT-NON) PROMs as well as any differences due to demographic characteristics (eg, use for patient care or research, job setting, highest education level) may help facilitate the use of PROMs in athletic training., Objective: To describe commonly used PROMs by AT-USE, the criteria by which AT-USE select PROMs, and reasons for non-use by AT-NON., Design: Cross-sectional study., Setting: Online survey., Patients or Other Participants: A convenience sample of 1784 ATs (response rate = 10.7% [1784/17972]; completion rate = 92.2% [1784/1935]) who worked in a variety of settings., Main Outcome Measure(s): Participants completed an anonymous electronic online survey. Descriptive statistics were used to describe commonly used PROMs, PROM selection criteria, and reasons for PROM non-use., Results: Participants were classified as AT-USE (n = 370, 20.7%) or AT-NON (n = 1414, 79.3%). For the AT-USE group, the most common type of PROMs used were specific (eg, region, joint; n = 328, 88.6%), followed by single-item (n = 258, 69.7%) and generic (n = 232, 62.7%). Overall, the PROMs most frequently endorsed by the AT-USE group were the Numeric Pain Rating Scale (n = 128, 34.6%); Lower Extremity Functional Scale (n = 108, 29.2%); Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (n = 96, 25.9%); Owestry Disability Index (n = 80, 21.6%); and Foot and Ankle Ability Measure (n = 78, 21.1%). The most important criteria reported by AT-USE for selecting PROMs were that the measure was valid and reliable, easy for patients to understand, and easy for clinicians to understand and interpret. Common reasons for non-use were that PROMs were too time consuming for the clinician, too time consuming for the patient, and more effort than they were worth., Conclusions: The Numeric Pain Rating Scale; Lower Extremity Functional Scale; Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand; Owestry Disability Index; and Foot and Ankle Ability Measure were the PROMs most commonly endorsed by AT-USE and should be considered for athletic training use. To further facilitate the use of PROMs in athletic training, future authors should identify strategies to address organizational and time-constraint obstacles. Interpretation of our study findings may require caution due to a relatively low response rate and because "routine use" was not operationalized.

Context: Typically, athletic trainers rely on clinician-centered measures to evaluate athletes' return-to-play status. However, clinician-centered measures do not provide information regarding patients' perceptions., Objective: To determine whether clinically important changes in patient-reported outcomes were observed from the time of lower extremity injury to the time of return to play in adolescent athletes., Design: Cross-sectional study., Setting: The National Athletic Treatment, Injury and Outcomes Network (NATION) program has captured injury and treatment data in 31 sports from 147 secondary schools across 26 states. A subsample of 24 schools participated in the outcomes study arm during the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 academic years., Patients or Other Participants: To be included in this report, student-athletes must have sustained a knee, lower leg, ankle, or foot injury that restricted participation from sport for at least 3 days. A total of 76 initial assessments were started by athletes; for 69 of those, return-to-play surveys were completed and analyzed., Main Outcome Measure(s): All student-athletes completed generic patient-reported outcome measures (Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System [PROMIS] survey, Global Rating of Change scale, and Numeric Pain Rating Scale) and, depending on body region, completed an additional region-specific measure (Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score or Foot and Ankle Ability Measure). All applicable surveys were completed at both the initial and return-to-play time points. Means and standard deviations for the total scores of each patient-reported outcome measure at each time point were calculated. Change scores that reflected the difference from the initial to the return-to-play time points were calculated for each participant and compared with established benchmarks for change., Results: The greatest improvement in patient-reported outcomes was in the region-specific forms, with scores ranging from 9.92 to 37.73 on the different region-specific subscales (Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score or Foot and Ankle Ability Measure; scores range from 0-100). The region-specific subscales on average still showed a 21.8- to 37.5-point deficit in reported health at return to play. The PROMIS Lower Extremity score increased on average by 13 points; all other PROMIS scales were within normative values after injury., Conclusions: Adolescent athletes who were injured at a high school with an athletic trainer may have shown improvement in patient-reported outcomes over time, but when they returned to play, their outcome scores remained lower than norms from comparable athlete groups.