• Thaís Cristina Chaves, Harumi Martins Nagamine, Letícia Mêlo de Sousa, Anamaria Siriani de Oliveira, and Débora Bevilaqua Grossi.
• Department of Biomechanics, Medicine and Rehabilitation of the Locomotor Apparatus, Ribeirão Preto School of Medicine, University of São Paulo-USP, Câmpus Universitário, CEP: 14049-900 Ribeirão Preto (SP) Brasil.
• Man Ther. 2010 Oct 1;15(5):508-12.

AbstractThe aim of this study was to compare the intra- and inter-rater reliability of pressure pain threshold (PPT) and manual palpation (MP) of orofacial structures in symptomatic and symptom-free children for temporomandibular disorders (TMD). Fourteen children reporting pain in masticatory muscles or the temporomandibular joint and 16 symptom-free children were randomly assessed on three different occasions: by rater-1 in the first and third session and by rater-2 in the second session. The trained raters applied algometry and MP as recommended by the Research Diagnostic Criteria for TMD. Intraclass correlation coefficients and the Kappa statistic were used to assess the levels of reliability of PPT and MP, respectively. Excellent intra- and inter-rater reliability levels were observed for PPT values at most of the examined sites for symptom-free children and excellent and moderate reliability levels for children reporting pain. For MP, moderate and poor intra-rater and inter-rater reliability levels were observed for most sites in both groups. Algometry showed higher reliability levels for both groups of children and is recommended for pain assessment in children in association with MP.Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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