Background Athletic hip and groin pain is common in the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) but its prevalence at elite level is unknown. The changes in Hip and Groin Outcome Score (HAGOS) over a season in and the ability of HAGOS to identify those athletes who will go onto develop hip and groin symptoms has not been reported previously.

Objective The aim of this study was to report the prevalence of hip and groin symptoms and the changes in HAGOS score across a season in elite GAA players and examine the relationship between pre-season HAGOS scores and self-reported groin pain during that season.

Design Retrospective cohort study.

Participants There were 1241 elite intercounty GAA players who participated at the start of the 2017 and 2018 seasons.

Interventions (or Assessment of Risk Factors) Online Questionnaire.

Main Outcome Measurements The HAGOS questionnaire and self reported incidence of groin pain in previous season.

Results There was a high prevalence of hip and groin pain reported in elite GAA athletes over the course of a season (36%). There was no change on average across all the HAGOS subscales apart from Physical Activity which had a medium effect size change (d = 0.44) with 12 to 22% of athletes showing a decrease greater than minimal detectable change across HAGOS subscales over the course of a season and 15–34% showing an increase. There was poor ability to predict the incidence of hip and groin pain using pre-season HAGOS (AUC = 0.57 to 0.67).

Conclusions There is a high prevalence of hip and groin pain in elite GAA athletes with group HAGOS masking individual changes across cohort. There is poor ability of pre-season HAGOS to predict incidence of hip and groin pain in elite GAA athletes in the subsequent season.