CORRESPONDENCE OF DIAGNOSIS TO INITIAL TREATMENT FOR PATIENTS WITH NECK PAIN. Carol P. Dionne*1,2; Ronald F. Bybee1,2; Joe Tomaka1,2 1. Physical Therapy, UTEP, El Paso, TX; 2. Univesity of Texas at El Paso College of Health Sciences, El Paso, TX PURPOSE: Determine and quantify the link between Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy (MDT) diagnosis and treatment for neck pain (NP). BACKGROUNDS/SIGNIFICANCE: A physical therapy patient care model has been proposed that links patient assessment-diagnosis-treatment-outcomes. Validation of that model must be established prior to determining the efficacy of patient care.McKenzie developed the MDT process to diagnose NP and direct its treatment. No study has determined the link between MDT diagnosis and treatment for NP. SUBJECTS: Fifty-four physical therapists, MDT-trained for NP from the USA and Canada, participated in the study. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Subjects viewed videotaped examinations of 20 adult patients with NP and rated diagnosis and initial treatment. ANALYSES: For correlation between MDT diagnosis and treatment, the Phi coefficiant was used, rφ, was used. For specific association of MDT diagnosis with treatment, Chi-squareχ2was used. To determine inter-rater agreement (association) on the line of diagnosis to treatment, Kappa κ, Z statistic (z), and percent agreement were used. RESULTS: Positive, significant correlation exists between diagnosis and initial treatment (rφ=.772, SE=.065. P=.000). Association of specific MDT diagnosis with treatment was significant (χ2=20.016; df=6; P=.003). Inter-rater agreement on the diagnosis-treatment link of derangement-directional preference and not derangement-no directional preference of treatment was highly significant, yet clinically moderate (κ=.46; CI=+0.4489, -0.4719, P<.0001; 86.67% agreement). CONCLUSIONS: Clinicians trained in MDT for NP reliably link diagnosis to initial treatment of patients with NP. The current study gives further evidence to the diagnosis-treatment link of the MDT patient care model for NP. FUNDING SOURCE: University Research Initiative (UTEP); McKenzie Insititute International KEYWORDS: diagnosis-treatment link, neck pain Copyright 2009 by the American Physical Therapy Association. Requests for reprints should be directed to the corresponding author of the article. Educators, students, and other academic customers may receive permission to reprint copyrighted material from Physical Therapy (ISSN 1538-6724) by contacting the Copyright Clearance Center Inc, 222 Rosewood Dr, Danvers, MA 01923. Other types of customers who want permission to reprint should contact the APTA Editorial Office, Attn: Physical Therapy.