Abstract
Background Prior to total hip and knee arthroplasty (THA/TKA), patients with low socioeconomic status (SES) report worse Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs), persisting postoperatively. This study explores which selfreported PROMs and their specific domains are most involved. Methods We obtained data from the Dutch Arthroplasty Registry (2014–2022), including over 100,000 THA/ TKA patients with complete preoperative and 12-month follow-up PROMs. The EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-5L, EQ Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Oxford Hip and Oxford Knee Score (OHS/OKS), and Numerical Rating Scales (NRS) for pain and satisfaction (TKA only, at 12-month follow-up) were obtained. The PROMs were transformed to a 0-100 scale for direct comparison. A SES-indicator based on neighborhood income, unemployment rate, and education level was divided into quintiles, which are equal groups representing 20% of the Dutch population, and was ranked from least to most deprived. Through linear regression we contrasted the most and least deprived groups, adjusting for patient and surgical characteristics. The contribution (percentage) of each domain to the overall health inequalities was estimated for the EQ-5D’s and the OHS/OKS. Results In TKA patients, the most compared to the least deprived group had a lower preoperative EQ-5D-3L score: -2.1 [95% confidence interval − 2.6, -1.6], p < 0.001. At 12-month follow-up, the difference was smaller: EQ-5D-3L 1.3 [-1.9, -0.7], p < 0.001. A larger difference between the most and least deprived was present in OKS (preoperatively: -4.3 [-5.3, -3.4], p < 0.001; 12-month: -1.8 [-2.5, -1.2], p < 0.001). The difference in EQ VAS was smaller (preoperatively: -0.8 [-1.5, -0.1], p = 0.024; 12-month: -0.5 [-1.2, 0.1], p = 0.108). The difference in NRS pain (in rest) was comparable to those in EQ-5D-3L and OKS (preoperatively: -4.5 [-5.4, -3.5], p < 0.001; 12-month: -2.7 [-3.5, -1.9], p < 0.001), while no difference between the most and least deprived in NRS satisfaction was observed at 12 months. For EQ-5D-3L, the domain usual *Correspondence: Joshua M. Bonsel j.bonsel@erasmusmc.nl Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this