Hip scores: A current concept review.

INTRODUCTION: During the past decades, several rating scales have been developed to assess the functional status of patients with hip pain. SOURCE OF DATA: A search in Medline, PubMed, Cochrane and CINAHL was performedusing combinations of the following'hip', 'scoring system', 'scale', 'scores', 'outcome assessment', 'arthroplasty', 'arthroscopy' and 'clinical evaluation'. AREAS OF AGREEMENT: A total 16 scoring systems are currently available for the evaluation of the hip. AREAS OF CONTROVERSY: Two types of questionnaires are available: physician-rated and patient-rated questionnaires. GROWING POINTS: Each hip score consists of different domains. Interpreting these domains becomes sometimes difficult, because, even though they can be common to more than one scoring system, each stresses them in a different way. AREAS TIMELY FOR DEVELOPING RESEARCH: Although many scoring systems have been used to evaluate hip function, we are still far from a single outcome evaluation system which is reliable, valid and sensitive.