About the score
- Originally published in 1969 in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, the Harris Hip Score (HHS) was designed to be a standardized assessment of patients following total hip arthroplasty. Since that time, it has also been used for evaluating patients following hip fractures and the diagnosis of osteoarthritis.
- It has also been proven an effective tool to measure outcomes after interventions such as physical therapy.
- The HHS is a physician-completed instrument that consists of subscales for pain severity (1 item, 0-44 points), function (7 items, 0-47 points), absence of deformity (1 item, 0-4 points), and range of motion (2 items, 0-5 points). Scores range from 0 (worse disability) to 100 (less disability).
Strengths
- The Harris Hip Score takes about 5-7 minutes to complete and is easy for clinicians to score.
- No training is required to administer the HHS and it requires very little time or equipment (goniometer, plinth) to complete.
Validity
In terms of content validity, The HHS has demonstrated no major differences when tested against the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), and the Short Form 36 (SF-36)When assessing for construct validity, the pain and function domains in HHS have been shown to correlate with similar domains in the WOMAC], Nottingham Health Profile, and the SF-36, particularly the physical (but not mental) domains of the SF-36.
YOU CAN USE THIS FORM BELOW TO ASSESS YOUR PATIENT AND PRINT IT OUT OR SAVE AS PDF FILE.
Supporting literature
- Original Literature:
- Harris, WH. “Traumatic arthritis of the hip after dislocation and acetabular fractures: treatment by mold arthroplasty: an end-result study using a new method of result evaluation.” J Bone Joint Surg Am, 1969. 737-55.
- Validation Literature:
- Söderman, Peter, and Henrik Malchau. “Is the Harris hip score system useful to study the outcome of total hip replacement?.” Clinical orthopaedics and related research 384 (2001): 189-197.
- Additional Literature:
- Wamper, Kim E., et al. “The Harris hip score: do ceiling effects limit its usefulness in orthopedics? A systematic review.” Acta orthopaedica 81.6 (2010): 703-707.
Author
- Dr. William Harris was a chief of Adult Reconstructive Surgery and the founder and director emeritus of the Harris Orthopaedic Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was also a founding member and the first president of the Hip Society of North America.