Reliability of manual skinfold tests in a healthy male population.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the intra- and interexaminer agreement of a manual skinfold thickness test and a manual skinfold compliance test. The relation between the weekly routine of the examiners and the intraexaminer reliability was also assessed for both tests.

DESIGN

This is a reliability study of a common palpatory procedure to assess skinfold thickness and skinfold compliance. Twelve healthy subjects were palpated twice in two sessions by 12 examiners.

SETTING

The study was conducted at the Polytechnic of Utrecht (the Netherlands), Faculty of Health Care, Department of Physiotherapy.

SUBJECTS

Healthy male subjects recruited from students of the Polytechnic of Utrecht (the Netherlands), Department of Physiotherapy.

RESULTS

The intraexaminer agreement Intraclass Correlation Coefficient [ICC(3.1)] was .25 for skinfold thickness and .28 for skinfold compliance. The interexaminer agreement [ICC(2,1)] ranged from .01 to .24. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the examiners age and routine vs. intraexaminer agreement ranged from -.41 to .23 (nonsignificant).

CONCLUSIONS

The intra- and interexaminer agreement of the manual skinfold test produced poor-to-fair reliability. The correlation between the examiners' weekly routine and the intraexaminer reliability ranged from low negative to little (if any). This study shows a lack of reliability of palpatory tests for skinfold thickness and skinfold compliance. This outcome agrees with results of previous studies found in the literature.