Seven health domains with four items each, plus a single pain intensity rating: 29 items that give a broad health profile in about five minutes. Scores are T-scores, where 50 is the reference population average.
Free sandbox · No credit card · 21 CFR Part 11 aligned
Physical function
T 44
Fatigue
T 57
Pain intensity
4 / 10
At a glance
Licensing
Free, with conditionsRights holder: HealthMeasuresEnglish and Spanish PROMIS measures are free for individual research and clinical use. Commercial users need permission, putting PROMIS items into a software platform needs HealthMeasures' electronic administration review, and fees can apply.
In Capture: Capture doesn't supply this instrument or a licence for it. Once you have both, enter the official wording yourself, then switch on "Licence required" in the questionnaire's settings and record the licence number and expiry. Staff see a "copyright approval pending" watermark until you do, and Capture stops new data collection on the questionnaire after the recorded expiry date.
HealthMeasuresPROMIS® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Instrument names belong to their rights holders, and Capture is not affiliated with or endorsed by them. Terms change, so confirm them with the rights holder before your study starts. This is general information, not legal advice.
In trials
Disease-specific questionnaires are sensitive but make comparisons across conditions hard. PROMIS measures were built from large item banks and calibrated against a reference population, so a fatigue T-score of 60 means the same thing in a rheumatology trial as in an oncology one. That makes the PROMIS-29 useful as a broad health profile, in registries and natural history studies, and as a secondary outcome alongside disease-specific endpoints.
Because each domain has only four items, the PROMIS-29 is a profile rather than a precise measure of any one domain. If one domain is your primary endpoint, a longer short form or computer adaptive testing for that domain gives more precision.
T-scores are obtained from the official HealthMeasures scoring service or published conversion tables, not by simple summing. Store raw item responses with their codes, and score them once in analysis with the correct version of the tables.
PROMIS-29 · Week 4
Pain intensity · past 7 days
Pain intensity, average
GLOBAL07Structure
| Domain | Items | Higher score means |
|---|---|---|
| Physical function | 4 | Better function |
| Anxiety | 4 | More anxiety |
| Depression | 4 | More depressive symptoms |
| Fatigue | 4 | More fatigue |
| Sleep disturbance | 4 | More sleep disturbance |
| Ability to participate in social roles and activities | 4 | Better participation |
| Pain interference | 4 | More interference |
| Pain intensity | 1 | More pain (0 to 10, not a T-score) |
Use the item wording and translations published by HealthMeasures, and record the version (for example v2.0 or v2.1).
In Capture
Build the PROMIS-29 as a questionnaire from the wording HealthMeasures supplies, schedule it with windows and reminders, and export coded raw responses for scoring. Mark it as licence-required to keep your permission details and expiry with the questionnaire.
Copyright & licence
Approval pendingLicence number
Not recorded
Expiry date
Not recorded
Watermark shown to staff only. Participants never see it.
Set up the domains, schedule and reminders, then preview it on your phone.
Interpretation
Because T-scores have a standard deviation of 10, a change of 5 points is half a standard deviation, a size often described as moderate. Published estimates of meaningful change for individual PROMIS domains usually fall in the range of about 2 to 6 points, depending on the domain and population. Anchor-based estimates from your own trial, using a global impression of change, are the most defensible.
Direction is the other common pitfall: physical function and social participation improve upwards, all symptom domains improve downwards. State the direction for each domain in the analysis plan and data dictionary. See MCID for how meaningful change is estimated.
Before go-live
Current HealthMeasures terms for your study.
Profile version and translation.
Official scoring service or tables, in analysis.
Per domain in the data dictionary.
Longer short form if one domain is primary.
Matched to the seven-day recall.
No. Paediatric and parent-proxy PROMIS measures are separate instruments; use the version validated for the age group.
PROMIS scores measure more of the named concept. More physical function is better, while more fatigue or pain interference is worse.
Physical function, anxiety, depression, fatigue, sleep disturbance, social participation and pain interference, plus pain intensity.
Each four-item domain is converted to a T-score using official scoring tables or the HealthMeasures scoring service. Pain intensity is reported as 0 to 10.
A standardised score with a mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10 in the reference population.
PROMIS measures are distributed through HealthMeasures. Check the current terms of use for your type of study.
No. Build the PROMIS-29 as a questionnaire from the wording HealthMeasures supplies, under the permission that applies to your study.
Published estimates for PROMIS domains usually fall around 2 to 6 T-score points, depending on the domain and population.
Seven domains on participant phones. Free sandbox.