Patient-Reported Outcomes Associated With "Completely Better" Status at 2 Years After Hip Arthroscopy.

BACKGROUND

Measures such as the Patient Acceptable Symptom State and minimum clinically important difference have been used to contextualize patient-reported outcomes (PROs). Assessment of patients' perception of being "completely better" (CB) after hip arthroscopy has not been studied.

PURPOSES

To (1) determine the prevalence and characteristics of patients who report being CB at 2 years after hip arthroscopy; (2) determine whether PROs measuring function, pain, and mental health are associated with CB status; and (3) determine threshold values for PROs predictive of achieving CB status.

STUDY DESIGN

Case-control study; Level of evidence, 3.

METHODS

Patients undergoing hip arthroscopy at a single institution from October 2015 to January 2020 were administered electronic surveys assessing sociodemographic variables and PROs at baseline and 2 years postoperatively. The CB anchor question was "" Threshold values for PROs associated with achieving CB status at 2 years postoperatively were identified with 90% specificity. Variables with an area under the curve of >0.80 on a receiver operating characteristic curve were selected for multivariate analysis.

RESULTS

Overall, 29 of 62 patients (47%) achieved CB status. There were no differences in age, sex, body mass index, race, prior hip surgery, preoperative opioid use, smoking status, or preoperative expectations between the CB and no-CB groups. The CB group had better 2-year postoperative and pre- to postoperative change values on all PROs ( < .05 for all) except for the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS)-Depression and the Numeric Pain Scale (NPS) for whole-body pain. Two-year postoperative PRO thresholds for achieving CB status were determined as PROMIS-Physical Function (PF) ≥51.3 or increase in PROMIS-PF ≥12 points, PROMIS-Pain Interference ≤46.6 or decrease in PROMIS-Pain Interference ≥12.2 points, NPS for operative hip pain of ≤1.0, Musculoskeletal Outcomes Data Evaluation and Management System-expectations met ≥95.0, and Surgical Satisfaction Questionnaire (SSQ-8) ≥87.5. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that higher SSQ-8 score and greater improvement on the PROMIS-PF were independent predictors of achieving CB status.

CONCLUSION

Almost half of the study patients perceived being CB at 2 years after hip arthroscopy. Multiple postoperative PROs scores were associated with achieving CB status.