Heterogeneity of Reporting Outcomes in the Spine Surgery Literature

Review of spine surgery literature between 2005 and 2014 to assess the reporting of patient outcomes by determining the variability of use of patient outcomes metrics in the following categories: pain and disability, patient satisfaction, readmission, and depression. Expose the heterogeneity of outcomes reporting and discuss current initiatives to create more homogenous outcomes databases. There has been a recent focus on the reporting of quality metrics associated with spine surgery outcomes. However, little consensus exists on the optimal metrics that should be used to measure spine surgery outcomes. A PubMed search of all spine surgery manuscripts from January 2005 through December 2014 was performed. Linear regression analyses were performed on individual metrics as well as outcomes categories as a fraction of total papers reviewing surgical outcomes. Outcomes reporting has increased significantly between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2014 [175/2871 (6.1%) vs. 764/5603 (13.6%), respectively; P