Abstract:

Objective: Total hip arthroplasty (THA) is a common procedure nowadays, with hospitals easily reaching hundreds of surgeries a year and considering the cross-sectional nature. Joint awareness (JA) is indicative of the patient's adaptation and satisfaction after THA. The current study investigated the relationship between joint awareness, joint position sense (JPS), mobility level, activities of daily living, and hip pain level in patients with THA. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study involving 50 individuals with THA (31.48±55.14 weeks post-surgery; mean age was 54.32±18.28 years). Factors related to joint awareness were examined with linear regression analysis. Hip Joint position sense (JPS) was measured with a digital inclinometer, pain level was measured with a Visual Analog Scale (VAS), joint awareness was assessed with the Forgotten Joint Score-12, and mobility level was assessed with the Parker Mobility Index. Results: The factors that have a statistically significant effect on the joint awareness are age, pain, mobility, and BMI (p = 0.002, p = 0.040, p<0.001, p = 0.010, and p = 0.010, respectively). According to the Beta coefficients, it is seen that the independent variables with the highest effect in absolute terms are mobility (Beta = 0.599) and age (Beta = 0.448). Conclusion: According to our results, younger patients were less adaptive to the artificial joint following THA. The mobility level was also a strong predictive factor in joint awareness. Physiotherapy and rehabilitation programs should focus on joint awareness in terms of age and mobility level in patients with THA.

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