Systematic Review of Measures of Psychosocial Adaptation in Adults With Chronic Disease

BACKGROUND: Psychosocial adaptation is a key indicator for chronic disease rehabilitation. Many instruments have been proposed to evaluate psychosocial adaptation in individuals with chronic disease, but their measurement properties are unknown. OBJECTIVES: This systematic review aims to identify and critically assess the measurement properties of all existing instruments intended for measuring psychosocial adaptation in adults with chronic disease. METHODS: A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Chinese databases, including China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wan Fang from their inception to July 10, 2025. The search followed the COSMIN guideline for systematic reviews of patient-reported outcome measures. RESULTS: Out of the 8,399 retrieved studies, only 24 studies that concerned 13 instruments were eventually included. Five instruments showed high-quality evidence from one measurement property, and two instruments were rated high-quality evidence from three and four measurement properties, respectively. There was no sufficient evidence for which instruments identified for assessing psychosocial adaptation in adults with chronic disease appear to be generally superior to the others. Therefore, further studies are recommended to validate the measurement properties of existing psychosocial adaptation instruments for adults with chronic disease. DISCUSSION: A total of 13 instruments were identified. However, current evidence for selecting instruments suitable for assessing psychosocial adaptation in adults with chronic disease was insufficient.