Review articleClinical screening tests for assessing movement control in non-specific low-back pain. A systematic review of intra- and inter-observer reliability studies
Section snippets
Background
Fifty-nine to eighty-four percent of the population exhibit symptoms of back pain at some point during their lives (Walker, 2000). Eighty to ninety percent will recover within six weeks irrespectively of coping strategies or treatment. However, up to 86% of these patients will suffer from recurrence within a year or more (Manchikanti et al., 2009; Stanton et al., 2011).
Up to 90% of low-back pain (LBP) symptoms are classified as non-specific, and the suggested cause is mechanical overuse and
Objective
This study seeks to summarise results and systematically assess the risk of bias in intra- and inter-observer reliability studies evaluating objective and active screening tests for movement control in subjects with non-specific LBP.
Data sources and search strategy
A systematic computerised search was conducted by the author (HC) through the search provider Pubmed and in the Chinal, Amed, Pedro and Swemed+ databases between January and March 2010. A second search was conducted at the end of October 2011. The following limitations were used for Pubmed: males/females, English/Swedish, young adults 19–24, adults 19–44, middle-aged 45–64, age: 65+ years and publication date 1998–2011. An initial search used the key term ‘low-back pain’ to cover a wide range
Results
Relevant articles matching the inclusion criteria were found in Pubmed and Cinahl. One study (Davis et al., 2011) was retrieved through the MeSH terms, ‘Low-back Pain’, and ‘Observer Variation’. In total, the two authors read 34 abstracts and 20 articles. Finally, eight articles met the study objectives as shown in Fig. 1 and are summarised in Table 1. Both authors assessed the risk of bias.
A variety of screening tests were assessed in the included studies and were conducted with various
Discussion
The present study is, to our knowledge, the first systematic review assessing risk of bias and summarising the results of intra- and inter-observer reliability of movement-screening tests in subjects with non-specific low-back pain. The included studies presented a variety of movement screening tests and were conducted with various methods. Only a few tests were assessed across studies and the majority of studies included were conducted with a high risk of bias.
All the included studies (Van
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Tim Crosfield for English proof reading and Björn Äng for valuable advice. This study was financially supported by Minnesfonden with a Master student grant.
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