Shoulder Symptom Irritability Scale: A Single-Blinded Observational Study

Background Physical therapists regularly make decisions regarding intervention intensity based upon pathoanatomy, symptom irritability, and impairment identification, but the reliability and validity of classifying patients by symptom irritability is unknown.

Purpose Examine the reliability and use of the shoulder symptom irritability classification system for the purposes of determining an appropriate treatment intensity.

Design Prospective repeated-measures single-blinded design to determine reliability and a cross-sectional design will be utilized to aid in determining construct validity.

Methods Twenty-five (25) raters will be trained to make paired ratings in 90 subjects with primary complaints of shoulder pain. Raters will record the shoulder symptom irritability level and also select the appropriate intervention intensities for the subjects. Raters will also be asked to choose anticipated interventions for subjects.

Data Analysis Prevalence-adjusted, bias-adjusted Kappa for ordinal scales (PABAK-OS) will be the primary measure of reliability. Dependent upon the distribution of the data, other forms of Kappa may be utilized to analyze the data most appropriately. To determine differences in reliability between groups with and without clinical specialization, an independent t test will be utilized with α = 0.05. Lastly, analysis of variance with post-hoc analysis will be used to compare functional disability across different levels of irritability.

Significance This study addresses key gaps in the understanding of symptom irritability and how it relates to clinical decision making. It is expected that symptom irritability should logically drive intervention selection and intensity of rehabilitation interventions.

Rater Group

Inclusion criteria

• State licensure as a physical therapist and regular clinical practice with patients with shoulder disorders, defined as a minimum of 500 clinical hours per year in an orthopaedic setting with >10% of patients with shoulder disorders

Exclusion criteria

• not meeting inclusion criteria

Patient Group

Inclusion criteria

• Presenting with a chief complaint of shoulder pain, not extending to the neck, for outpatient physical therapy consultation

Exclusion criteria

• Illiteracy in English and age less than 18 years. Additionally, subjects will be excluded from the study if they present with pain or symptoms distal to elbow, have had shoulder surgery on the symptomatic side in the past year, if active or passive cervical spine ROM reproduces shoulder pain, have a positive Spurling's test, or if they are unable to complete the patient reported functional questionnaires