• Priya Shukla, Li-Ching Huang, Alison Zhao, Betemariam Sharew, Ben Miller, Lucas Beffa, Clayton C Petro, David M Krpata, Ajita S Prabhu, and Michael J Rosen.
• From the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland, OH (Shukla, Zhao, Sharew).
• J. Am. Coll. Surg. 2023 Sep 1; 237 (3): 525532525-532.

BackgroundPatient-reported outcomes in clinical research allow for a more comprehensive and meaningful assessment of interventions but are subjective and difficult to interpret. European Registry for Abdominal Wall Hernias-Quality of Life (EuraHS-QoL) is a tool designed to assess perioperative quality of life for patients undergoing inguinal hernia repair, one of the most performed operations worldwide. Defining the minimum clinically important difference (MCID) for EuraHS-QoL tool can help standardize its interpretation for research purposes and facilitate improved shared decision making in clinical settings.Study DesignA combination of 3 approaches for estimating MCIDs was used in this study. First, 2 distribution-based approaches were used that based estimates on statistical parameters of the data. The SEM provided a minimum value for the MCID, and one-half of the SD provided a point estimate of the MCID. Second, anchor-based approaches integrated patient perceptions of their overall well-being before and after surgery to provide benchmarks for the MCID. Last, iterative surveys of expert hernia surgeons were used to yield the final MCIDs for each domain and the composite EuraHS-QoL score.ResultsThe overall range of EuraHS-QoL is 0 to 90, with subdomain ranges of 0 to 30 for the pain domain, 0 to 40 for the restriction of activities domain, and 0 to 20 for the cosmesis domain, with higher scores representing worse outcomes. The overall MCID for EuraHS-QoL is 10. Domain-specific MCIDs are 3 for the pain domain, 5 for the restriction of activities domain, and 2 for the cosmesis domain.ConclusionsIn this study, we define overall and domain-specific MCIDs for the EuraHS-QoL instrument using statistical methods, patient-based methods, and clinical expertise, providing estimates that are both statistically and clinically significant.Copyright © 2023 by the American College of Surgeons. Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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