Intra and interexaminer reliability of motion palpation in the cervical spine

A pilot study was undertaken to evaluate the intra- and interexaminer agreement in passive motion palpation of the upper cervical spine. Sixty-two subjects were examined by two examiners, who were in their final year of clinical training. The observed results compared quite favourably with those reported in similar studies, however, agreement beyond chance ranged from 15 to 52 percent. Three issues which require consideration for future research are: role of asymptomatic subjects, student expectations, and the use of student examiners.