Elgelid S, Lovelace-Chandler V; University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR. Staffan@learnandperform.com.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a difference in palpation skills regarding, sensitivity (ability to detect) and specificity (ability to avoid false positives) among students in a Doctor of Physical Therapy education. No studies have been performed to study differences in palpation skills among different cohorts in a DPT program. Palpation is part of the physical therapy examination and it is therefore important to know if there are differences between pre-physical therapy students and among the different cohorts in a DPT program. SUBJECTS: Fifty-eight subjects, 15 pre-physical therapy, 14 first year, 15 second year and 14 third year students, from the University of Central Arkansas participated in the study. METHODS: The subjects palpated three Mammatech® silicone breast models twice. The subjects had 25 minutes for each palpation trial with a 5 minute break in between sessions. The Mammatech models contained a total of 14 silicone lumps of different size and density, that were placed at different depths. The Mammatech models were chosen for this study since they had been used in published palpation studies, and the students had not palpated them as part of the regular DPT curriculum. ANALYSIS: Analysis was performed with SPSS 11.0 for Windows. ANOVAs and descriptive statistics were performed for palpation sensitivity and specificity. RESULTS: The results indicated that there was a difference between pre-physical therapy students and DPT students (p < 0.01) for both sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity increased during both the didactic and clinical portion of a DPT education. No significant difference was found in specificity among the DPT students as they progressed through the didactic and clinical portion of the DPT education. CONCLUSIONS: DPT students differ in palpation skills, and it appears as if the palpation skills improve during the didactic as well as the clinical portion of the DPT education. FUNDING SOURCE: None.

Copyright 2004 by the American Physical Therapy Association

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