Clinical diagnosis of soft tissue injuries to the knee by physiotherapists and orthopaedic surgeons: Is there a difference between the two professions?

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this study was to compare the accuracy of clinical diagnosis made by trained physiotherapists and orthopaedic surgeons when seeing elective patients in the outpatient clinic. The method involved a retrospective analysis of 100 case notes of patients who had been seen in the orthopaedic outpatient department and consecutively scheduled for knee arthroscopies. Fifty patients were seen by a physiotherapist and 50 by the orthopaedic surgical team. The physiotherapist was able to make a 66% clinically accurate diagnosis compared with 82% by the doctors ( p = 0.07). Sensitivity was 90.7% for surgeons and 68.1% for physiotherapists, whereas specificity was shown to be 71.4% for surgeons and 66.6% for physiotherapists. The accuracy of clinical diagnosis by trained surgeons is better than that of physiotherapists, although not statistically significant. It is, therefore, justifiable to place patients on theatre lists based only on clinical examination by either physiotherapists or surgeons.