Physical therapy
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Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
Reliability of physical examination items used for classification of patients with low back pain.
The purpose of this study was to examine the interrater reliability of measurements obtained by examiners administering tests proposed to be important for classifying low back pain (LBP) problems. ⋯ The results suggest that experienced therapist who had trained together were able to agree on the results of examinations and obtain an acceptable level of reliability. Future work should focus on testing of reliability when more than one therapist performs the examination and when therapist not trained by the test developer to administer the examination perform the tests. [Van Dillen LR, Sahrmann SA, Norton BJ, et al. Reliability of physical examination items used for classification of patients with low back pain.