Availability, diffusion and application of the outcome measures in the outpatient rehabilitation setting: a literature analysis based on an Italian survey

In outpatient rehabilitation, the outcome measures (OM) play a crucial role in correctly formulating the Individual Rehabilitation Plan and determining the functional prognosis, adhering to the biopsycho-social approach.1 The available OMs in rehabilitation are numerous and this diversity is justified by the complexity of the several variables characterizing the patients and their disorders.2 On the other hand, this diversity might cause a large variability in patients’ evaluation, because each OM can rarely explore the totality of patients’ aspects and because a professional might only use a limited amount of the available OM. Our study aims to evaluate the use of the most commonly used OM in clinical practice in the various Italian rehabilitation clinics, considering the most frequently studied pathologies and settings, also comparing them with the most commonly used OM in the scientific literature.