Journal of Spine

Inter-tester and Intra-tester Reliability of a Clinically Based Spinal Height Measurement Protocol

Abstract

Patricia L. Pennell, S. Christopher Owens, Jean-Michel Brismée, Gregory Dedrick, C. Roger James  and Phillip S. Sizer

Background: Spine height is related to disc hydration and activity. We aimed to establish inter- and intra-tester reliability for spine height measurements using a commercially available stadiometer that can be utilized in clinical settings. Methods: Twenty-nine healthy men and women (mean age = 29 ± 3.2 years) volunteered to participate. Each subject was seated in the stadiometer for 10 minutes with a 4.5 kg weight placed on each shoulder. The load was removed and spine height was measured every minute for five minutes by two different testers. Measurements were repeated twice more by one tester. Results: The means of the standard deviations were smaller than the mean differences, suggesting low variability and good reliability. The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.99 for both testing sequences. Conclusions: This is the first study to establish the inter-tester and intra-tester reliability of measuring spinal height using a commercially available clinic based stadiometer protoco