INFLUENCE OF EXAMINER EXPERIENCE AND GENDER ON INTERRATER RELIABILITY OF KT-1000 ARTHROMETER MEASUREMENTS

Background and Purpose. Measurement of the integrity of knee ligaments are used to diagnose injuries as well as to document the state of recovery. Many factors, such as gender and experience of the examiner, are capable of influencing the reliability of such measurements. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects on interrater reliability of measurements obtained using the KT-1000 arthrometer of experience, gender, and leg tested. Subjects. Two experienced examines (1 male, 1 female) and two inexperienced examiners (1 male, 1 female) tested 22 subjects with unilateral anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) pathology. Method. The leg with an ACL injury and the uninjured leg of each subject were evaluated by all four examiners within one test session using 67-N, 89-N, maximum manual, and active anterior drawer tests. Results. Greater anterior displacement values were found in the legs with ACL injury than in the uninjured legs. Reliability estimates, as assessed by intraclass correlation coefficients (2,k) and measurement error (SEM), suggest that therapist experience may be a more important factor influencing reliability than gender. Conclusion and Discussion. Given the magnitude of the errors obtained for tests routinely conducted in the clinic using the KT-1000 arthrometer, we recommend that repeated measurements should be taken by the same examiners whenever possible.