Interexaminer reliability of the deltoid and psoas muscle test.
OBJECTIVE
To determine if 2 practitioners of differing skill levels could reliably agree on the presence of a weak or strong deltoid or psoas muscle.


METHODS
Interexaminer reliability study of 2 common muscle tests.


METHODS
Cohen kappa (unweighted) scores, observer agreement, and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).


RESULTS
The results showed that an experienced and a novice practitioner have good agreement when using repeated muscle test procedures on the deltoid ( kappa 0.62) and the psoas ( kappa 0.67).


CONCLUSIONS
The manual muscle test procedures using the anterior deltoid or psoas showed good interexaminer reliability when used by an experienced and a novice user. These techniques may be used between practitioners in multidoctor assessment/management programs.
Pollard
Henry
H
Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia. hpollard@optushome.com.au
Lakay
Bronwyn
B
Tucker
Frances
F
Watson
Brett
B
Bablis
Peter
P
D000328:Adult; D002684:Chiropractic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009119:Muscle Contraction; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology*; D015588:Observer Variation; D010808:Physical Examination; D016658:Psoas Muscles / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D034941:Upper Extremity