Traumatic hip injuries, such as hip dislocations and acetabular fractures, often occur in young, active patients. Historically, patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for hip pathology have been generated and validated in an older, relatively sedentary population, with a focus on the ability to return to walking and activities of daily living. Therefore, these PROMs are not sensitive enough to measure function and quality of life in the young, active patient. Therefore, the Canadian Orthopaedic Trauma Society (COTS) developed a new PROM for young, active patients with hip trauma, in order to improve our ability to objectively measure our treatment effects and to inform patients appropriately. This is a multi-centre, prospective cohort study of young adult patients, aged 18 to 60 years, who sustained a traumatic injury to the hip joint (hip dislocation, or fracture of the acetabulum, femoral head, or femoral neck). Sequentially eligible patients completed the 42-question COTS-H PROM at two weeks, six weeks, three months, six months, and 1-year after injury, along with other validated measures including the international Hip Outcome Tool-33 (iHOT-33) 1, the Nonarthritic Hip Score (NAHS) 2, the Short Form-36 (SF-36) 3, and the Tegner Activity Scale. Descriptive statistics will be presented, as well as test-retest reliability, evaluation of construct validity, an assessment of responsiveness, and the minimally clinically important difference (Figure 1). Participants are being followed for 1-year post-injury and all follow-up data will be available for the 2025 COA meeting. A total of 135 patients were enrolled in the study between September 2017 and March 2024 across seven Canadian centres, with an average age of 40.8 (± 12.4) years and 75.2% being male. The average baseline pre-injury Tegner score was 5.5 (±1.33). The most common mechanisms of injury were sporting activities (25.2%) and motor vehicle collisions (22.2%). The most common presenting injury types were femoral neck fractures (32.6%), followed by elementary acetabular fracture patterns (24.4%). The most common type of surgical intervention was open reduction and internal fixation with a single surgical approach (55.6%). The Canadian Orthopaedic Trauma Society Hip Score (COTS-H) is a novel patient-reported outcome measure for young patients with hip trauma that stands to provide a new method for evaluating young patient recover after injury and to help the evaluation of different treatment interventions. For any figures or tables, please contact the authors directly.
Schneider et al. (Wed,) studied this question.