The functional movement screening (fms)™: an inter-rater reliability study between raters of varied experience.

BACKGROUND: Previous researchers have reported on the reliability of the scoring of the FMS™ movement screens. Those authors have reported good to excellent inter-rater reliability between paired raters of similar experience level (either novice or expert), but no comparisons of inter-rater reliability exist between a novice and an expert.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this investigation was to examine the inter-rater reliability of the scoring of the FMS™ between trained novices and an expert rater using video records.

METHODS: Twenty healthy college students participated. Each participant performed the series of seven functional movement screens. Four raters (three novices and one expert) independently scored the seven FMS™ tests by watching video recordings of the movements..

RESULTS: The mean total FMS™ score for all subjects was 14.6 ± 1.9, and was not significantly different between raters (p = 0.136). For the individual tests, half of them had perfect agreement, while the other half ranged from slight to moderate agreement (33-66%).

CONCLUSION: Total FMS™ scores were similar among the raters, and the inter-rater reliability for a majority of the individual tests had as strong agreement despite the various level of experience of the raters scoring the FMS™ tests.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Although there was mostly moderate to perfect agreement among raters, the level of experience of the rater scoring the FMS™ should be considered, as it appears that the expert rater was more critical than novice raters in the interpretation of the scoring criteria.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level 3.