Background: Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMS) are powerful tools that attempt to assess patients' needs from their unique perspectives. They allow the healthcare team to monitor the patient's condition and concerns outside the clinical setting. However, the real innovation in this field is their digitization: electronic patient- reported outcome measures (ePROMS).
Objective: The main of this review is to assess whether these new technologies are being used as a novel aid to palliative care teams in their daily struggle to provide comfort to their patients.
Methods: A systematic review was performed using PubMed and Web of Science.Through November 2021. Followed Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines at all stages. The search strategy yielded a total of 242 records, of which 13 met the predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria—extracted relevant information related to ePROM from each study.
Results: The main uses of ePROMs in end-of-life scenarios are quality-of-life assessment, symptom burden and simple assessments, and the decision to introduce PC. In 61.5% of cases, ePROMs positively impacted patients' quality of life. In addition, in 46.15% of cases, the ePROMs led the PC teams to make an ethical decision; the same relative value as in the circumstances did not define the direction in ethical terms.
Conclusion: Professionals and patients need to be reminded that these tools exist and can be applied in many situations. If used correctly, they can provide better QoL and QoC to patients in PC and better information provision to professionals.
Keywords:ePROMs, Palliative care, Self-management of symptoms, Quality of life, End of life, Decision-making
