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Measuring cervical muscle tenderness: a study of reliability
1Nordic Institute of Chiropractic, Odense, Denmark.
Purpose:
To study the inter- and intraexaminer reliability of assessing palpatory cervical muscle tenderness using a Total Tenderness Score System.
Design:
Blinded, repeated measures of cervical muscle Total Tenderness Score.
Setting:
Primary contact ambulatory outpatient facility in a publicly (National Health Service) funded chiropractic research institution.
Participants:
Fourteen asymptomatic volunteers, seven male and seven female, aged 23-45 yr.
Intervention:
Palpatory assessment of cervical muscle tenderness by two blinded examiners, three times in all per subject.
Main Outcome Measures:
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.
Conclusion:
The Total Tenderness Score system was deemed to possess acceptable reliability for use in the cervical muscles.