The GRIT score is a 10-item questionnaire used to measure an individual’s passion and perseverance for meeting long-term goals with a score from 1 to 5. The questionnaire was developed by Angela Duckworth, Ph.D. and can be found here.
Rotator cuff repair (RCR) surgery presents a formidable challenge to patients, and many face recovery that often takes months or even years. In our retrospective study of 103 patients, we hypothesized that higher GRIT scores would predict lower post-operative opioid requirements following arthroscopic RCR. Adjusting for confounders, the odds of using opioid pain medication at six weeks following RCR increased 3.5 times per each 1.0 unit decrease in GRIT score below 4.0.
As orthopaedic surgeons do their part to combat the opioid crisis, administration of the GRIT score may be used as a method to identify patients that are at an increased risk for higher opioid use after RCR.