Ever wonder how epilepsy affects the patient — the whole patient? A patient-reported outcome (PRO) is a questionnaire commonly used in the clinical world to asses a patient's quality of life (QOL) for research studies. Most of the time patients never get to see their test results, much less see them plotted over time. That's a shame because many of the best PROs were designed with the help of patients talking about their condition in their own voice.
Patients in our epilepsy community can now access a series of PROs to help understand the effect of their disease on everyday life and have a voice in real-world, real-time research. The best part is that once they've completed the questionnaires (which should take about 20 minutes) they get to see summary findings of how they compare to other members in the community, plus a summary of their overall physical, mental, and social quality of life is displayed on their profile and their patient icon.
This is an ambitious project; we're looking to get data from thousands of patients with epilepsy at 3 distinct time points. Through this shared goal for the community, patients are pulling together and encouraging one another to have a voice in research. After all, the more data is in the system, the more insight every individual can gain from taking part!