Applying patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in physiotherapy: an evaluation based on the QUALITOUCH Activity Index.

The study was retrospective and did not assign patients to different treatments, so it cannot show which treatment caused the change. Many patients only completed the questionnaire at the start, and follow-up response numbers fell over time, which introduces uncertainty. One patient could appear as multiple cases, so the same person may have influenced the results more than once. Important factors such as education, occupation and comorbidities were not available, so the corridors cannot account for them. The English version of the questionnaire used in this paper was translated by the authors and was not validated. The AI is generic, so diagnosis-specific aspects may be harder to analyse. Only two questions were analysed, maximum pain and household activities, so other AI dimensions were not evaluated.

Do not read the improving scores as proof that physiotherapy caused the improvement. There was no comparison group, and many patients stopped completing follow-ups, so the study describes expected patient-reported change rather than proof that the therapy worked.