Scleroderma skin PRO (SSPRO), a patient-reported outcome instrument to assess the skin-related quality of life in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc), has been developed with extensive patient input and demonstrates evidence for reliability and validity, a recent study found. It is complementary to existing measures of SSc skin involvement with emphasis on the patient's experience. Participants with SSc provided input on skin-related health effects through focus groups. Researchers developed items for SSPRO to encompass these effects. They found:

• 140 participants completed the SSPRO: mean age was 53.4 years, median disease duration was 5 years, 82.1% were female, and 32.9% had diffuse cutaneous SSc.
• Exploratory factor analysis supported 4 factors in SSPRO corresponding to hypothesized constructs: physical effects, physical limitations, emotional effects, and social effects.
• Removal of 4/22 items resulted in acceptable goodness-of-fit statistics.
• SSPRO correlated strongly with other participant-reported measures suggesting construct validity, and less well with physician-assessed measures.