Inter and Intra-Rater Reliability of Dance Screening Tool

Kathleen Stone, Braden Waters
2021
Previous literature has indicated that injury rates of ballet and modern dancers are among the highest of any physical activity. These injuries can be detrimental to the athlete and can also result in financial burden for dance companies due to time loss related to injuries. Preventative intervention aimed at those who are most at risk for injury can be effective at reducing the cost associated with lost time due to injury. An effective approach to identifying those most at risk for dance
more » ... d injuries is to administer a functional movement screen. One such movement screen is the ballet-based Dance Technique Screening Instrument, developed by the Director of Physical Therapy Services at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dr. Shaw Bronner. The purpose of this study was to investigate the intra and inter-rater reliability among physical therapists, physical therapy students, athletic trainers, and dance instructors with and without formal dance training in the scoring of the Dance Technique Screening Instrument. Participants were asked to watch videos of ballet dancers performing dance sequences included in the Dance Technique Screening. Raters scored each video using the Dance Specific Screening Instrument. Two weeks later, raters were asked to complete a second round of scoring of the same videos. This data was used to determine both inter and intra-rater reliability of the Dance Technique Screening Instrument among the subgroups. Results indicated that the inter-and intra-rater reliability for the total scores among all raters and within the individual profession subgroups ranged from good (ICC of 0.75-0.9) to excellent (ICC of >0.9) indicating the Dance Technique Screening Instrument is reliable among professionals with and without formal dance training. These findings demonstrate that this specific screening tool could be a utilized by a variety of professionals to identify dancers at risk for future injury.
doi:10.34917/23729378 fatcat:j4r7totzmfhfba6y266xihan2a