Stynes, S, Konstantinou, K, Dunn, KM, Lewis, M and Hay, EM (2015) Reliability among clinicians diagnosing low back-related leg pain. European Spine Journal. ISSN 0940-6719

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Abstract

PURPOSE: To investigate agreement and reliability among clinicians when diagnosing low back-related leg pain (LBLP) in primary care consulters. METHODS: Thirty-six patients were assessed by one of six physiotherapists and diagnosed as having either leg pain due to nerve root involvement (sciatica) or referred leg pain. Assessments were video recorded. In part one, the physiotherapists each viewed videos of six patients they had not assessed. In part two, videos were viewed by another six health professionals. All clinicians made an independent differential diagnosis and rated their confidence with diagnosis (range 50-100 %). RESULTS: In part one agreement was 72 % with fair inter-rater reliability (K = 0.35, 95 % CI 0.07, 0.63). Results for part two were almost identical (K = 0.34, 95 % CI 0.02, 0.69). Agreement and reliability indices improved as diagnostic confidence increased. CONCLUSION: Reliability was fair among clinicians from different backgrounds when diagnosing LBLP but improved substantially with high confidence in clinical diagnosis.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: sciatica; reliability; differential diagnosis; low back-related leg pain
Subjects: R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine
Divisions: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Primary Care Health Sciences
Related URLs:
Depositing User: Symplectic
Date Deposited: 22 Feb 2016 09:39
Last Modified: 30 May 2016 11:13
URI: https://eprints.keele.ac.uk/id/eprint/1482

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