Reliability of the assessment of impairments and disabilities in survey Research in the field of physical therapy

Objective: to evaluate the reliability of diagnostic assessment based on clinical observations by physical therapists. Design: interobserver studies between two pairs of physical therapists. Setting: two primary-care physical therapy practices. Patients: all applying to the practices for treatment. Exclusions: physical therapy in previous 3 months, or need for acute treatment. Assessments: schedule derived from the 1CIDH. Results: agreement on disabilities better than on impairments, the latter revealing problems particularly with pain and restricted range of motion. Conclusions: reliability of assessments of most of the categories considered was reliable; in two categories the reliability was poor, and the categories were modified.