title: Measuring cervical muscle tenderness: a study of reliability.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study the inter- and intraexaminer reliability of assessing palpatory cervical muscle tenderness using a Total Tenderness Score System.
  
  
  METHODS
  Blinded, repeated measures of cervical muscle Total Tenderness Score.
  
  
  METHODS
  Primary contact ambulatory outpatient facility in a publicly (National Health Service) funded chiropractic research institution.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fourteen asymptomatic volunteers, seven male and seven female, aged 23-45 yr.
  
  
  METHODS
  Palpatory assessment of cervical muscle tenderness by two blinded examiners, three times in all per subject.
  
  
  METHODS
  Total Tenderness Score (TTS), measured on a rank/ordinal scale.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The inter- and intraexaminer reliability of TTS was evaluated using a Spearman rank correlation coefficient (r = .88 and r = .85, respectively), and using a Wilcoxon paired rank sum test (p = .85 and p = .07, respectively) and by visual inspection of a scatter-plot.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Total Tenderness Score system was deemed to possess acceptable reliability for use in the cervical muscles.
authors.affiliation: Nordic Institute of Chiropractic, Odense, Denmark.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nilsson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002684:Chiropractic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal; D009333:Neck; D010147:Pain Measurement; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D016896:Treatment Outcome