The reliability measurements of lateral scapular slide test at three different degrees of shoulder joint abduction
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Published on: February 10, 2015
A Shadmehr1, H Bagheri, N N Ansari
1Department of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Rehabilitation, University of Tehran (Medical Sciences), Piche-Shemiran, Enghelab Ave, Tehran 11489-65141, Iran.
Background:
Lateral scapular slide test (LSST) quantitatively measures the distance between thoracic spine (T7) and inferior angle of scapula.
Objective:
In this study, the intra-rater reliability, inter-rater reliability and diagnostic accuracy of LSST were measured using a caliper.
Methods:
Three measurements of each test position were obtained bilaterally. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) (2.1), 95% CI and 2 SEMs were calculated for intra-rater and inter-rater reliability of the absolute scapular distance. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative likelihood ratios were determined.
Results:
27 people with and 30 people without shoulder pain participated. The mean age (SD) for the participant was 47.7 (11.6) years and 33.5 (11.7) years, respectively. The ICCs for intra-rater reliability were high. A range of poor to good ICCs was found for inter-rater reliability. The 2 SEMs ranged from 4.6 to 7.9 mm for intra-rater reliability and from 6.8 to 13.4 mm for inter-rater reliability for people with shoulder pain. Positive and negative likelihood ratios from 0.94 to 1.22 and from 0.21 to 2.5, respectively, were demonstrated.
Conclusion:
SST did not show a consistent high reliability. The diagnostic accuracy of the LSST was low, which questions the clinical importance of the tests outcomes.
