Evaluation of significance of clinical scoring systems in osteoarthritis knee in a South Indian population

Introduction: Osteoarthritis is one of the most common joint disorders in adult population affecting about 10 % of global population above the age of 60 years. Knee osteoarthritis is an important contributor for global disability among the other osteoarthritis and it contributes for 83% of the global disease burden for osteoarthritis. The symptoms of knee osteoarthritis include pain, stiffness and activity induced swelling. Present study aims to validate the correlation between WOMAC index, a widely used clinical scoring system and radiologically proven osteoarthritis which is graded by Kellgren-Lawrence radiological grading system.Material and Methods: The present study was undertaken in a tertiary care teaching hospital by the Department of Orthopaedics, IGMC & RI, Puducherry. It was a hospital-based cross-sectional study. A sample of 240 respondents was selected based on inclusion criteria. Functional limitation and radiological assessment were done using Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) and Kellgren and Lawrence (KL) scoring scale respectively. Observation and Results: The mean age of the study participants was 58.17±8.18. Chi square test was applied to test the correlation between WOMAC scoring and Kellgren-Lawrence radiological grading and found that there was significant correlation (P=0.0001 which was