Seeing the Person in the Patient: Making the Case for Individualized PROMs in Mental Health Care

This article presents the emergent approach of personalized assessment in mental health care, which combines standardized patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) with individualized measures (I-PROMs). Each patient has a unique clinical condition, with a set of problems and presentations specific to his or her person and circumstances. I-PROMs inform clinicians about idiosyncratic problems that cannot be captured in pre-set standardized PROMs, thus tailoring assessment to the person, and accomplishing the requirements of patient-centred outcomes assessment. Implications for managed care systems are discussed.