Unpublished MSc thesis, Wiener Schule für Osteopathie, 2007/03, 85, type of study: ,irs,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Free full text   (https://www.osteopathicresearch.org/s/orw/item/3017)

Keywords:

ecute [1]
local listening [1]
diagnosis [412]
osteopathic technique [17]
WSO [508]
clinical trial [674]

Abstract:

Agreements of findings in manual diagnosis often are low and thus reliability is poor. The abdominal local listening test is one of the screening tests performed first by many osteopaths during the diagnostic process, and therefore in many cases an initial step for the further treatment. I want to find out via this methodological study, whether the same or at least a similar result can be obtained, when several osteopaths perform this test independently. It is my intention, to investigate the saying and reliability of this test generally and not only restricted to the visceral level. 14 osteopaths perform this test on 15 test persons, three of them twice. The direction where their sensing hand is drawn to is noted and the agreement of the sensed direction is evaluated by means of Cohen's kappa (κ-indices). In approximately half of all comparisons between the therapists, the κ-indices indicate only agreements on the level of chance. The best agreements observed feature only a fair reliability. The influence of the therapists’ experience on the results did not turn out to be significant, though there might be trends that the agreement increases with the experience. The number of agreements above the level of chance is higher in the first half of the investigation than in the second half. There is evidence that the conditions are changed during the examinations. The values of the intra-examiner reliability are higher than those of the inter-examiner reliability (maximum moderate), but also here results can be observed, which are on a level of chance. Summing it up, this test is not universally valid in the way as it was performed. Additional supervision in advance of the examinations, a more distinct regulation of the level, from which the information should be gained, a longer time for the test and a regulation of the pressure of the hand should increase the agreements.