Objective: Rearfoot motion, particularly rearfoot pronation, has been associated with many foot and leg pathologies. The assessment of abnormal rearfoot pronation frequently involves the use of video assessment in both clinical and research settings, but the reliability of this assessment has not been addressed.
Design: In this study, 14 participants were videotaped during walking. Five clinicians individually viewed the recordings on two separate occasions and assessed whether the participant's rearfoot motion was abnormal.
Setting: University Gait Analysis Laboratory.
Patients or other participants: Patients from the university's podiatry clinic were assessed for rearfoot motion by five experienced clinicians.
Intervention: Because this was a reliability study, no intervention was undertaken.
Main outcome measures: Clinicians were asked to assess the videotape of the patients walking and indicate on a 3-point scale if they considered the person to be abnormally pronating. Retest and intertester results were compared.
Results: The results indicated that there was poor intertester agreement (kappa = .19). Retest agreement, while slightly higher, varied from poor to fair (kappa = -.12 to kappa = 59).
Conclusions: Although video recordings have been thought to enhance reliability of assessment of rearfoot motion, the results indicated that the exclusive use of video recordings in the assessment of motion of the rearfoot was not reliable.