There is evidence that scapular motion and position is related to shoulder pathology and therefore an important component of shoulder evaluation. The Lateral Scapular Slide Test (LSST) is used to determine scapular position with the arm abducted to 0, 45, and 90 degrees in the coronal plane. There are conflicting results from previous studies investigating the reliability of the LSST. 33 male subjects with ages ranging from 18 to 34 years participated in this study. One group (n = 15) had shoulder pathology and the other group (n = 18) did not have pathology. Two measurements were taken in each test position bilaterally. A coefficient of determination and standard error of the measurement (SEM) was calculated was as well as a repeated-measures analysis of variance and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). To determine the interrater reliability between raters, a model ICC (2,3) was used. Subjects without pathology in position 1 and 2 revealed high coefficients ranging from .80 to .92 whereas position 3 revealed moderate to high ranging from .64 to .81 Subjects with pathology were similar. ICC(2,2) was likewise good for positions 1 and 2 with ICC ranging from .87 to .95 while moderate to good for position 3 with ICC ranging from .70 to .82 in both groups with and without pathology. Overall good agreement for both subject groups were determined with ICC(2,3) and ranged from .83 to .96. The results of our investigation demonstrate that measurements obtained with the LSST can be reliable in screening scapular position or symmetry.
