Psychological readiness is related to return to sport following hip arthroscopy and can be assessed by the Hip-Return to Sport after Injury scale (Hip-RSI)

PURPOSE: Psychological readiness may play an important role in the return to sport (RTS) process following hip arthroscopy (HA), but there are limited tools for the measurement of this construct. The aim of this study was to modify the Swedish version of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament-Return to Sport after Injury (ACL-RSI) scale for use in HA patients and evaluate its psychometric properties. METHODS: Content validity of a modified version of the Swedish ACL-RSI (Hip-RSI) was evaluated through 127 HA patient responses and relevance ratings by an expert panel (35 patients, 9 surgeons, 11 physiotherapists). Items with low relevance were omitted. Construct validity was assessed by the association of Hip-RSI scores to hip-related sporting function (HAGOS sport) and quality of life (iHOT12). Hip-RSI scores were compared between patients who had not returned, or returned to sport participation, previous sport, and sport performance. RESULTS: Item reduction resulted in a 6-item Hip-RSI scale with adequate content validity for the target population. Construct validity of the full and the item-reduced scale was demonstrated by correlation to HAGOS sport and iHOT12 (r 0.631–0.752). A gradient increase in Hip-RSI scores was found for patients returning to sport participation, previous sport, and sport performance. CONCLUSION: The short version of the Swedish Hip-RSI is a valid tool for the assessment of psychological readiness to RTS and can be recommended to be used in HA patients. Higher psychological readiness to RTS, assessed by the Hip-RSI, is found with increasing levels of return to sports following HA. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: III. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00167-020-06157-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.