A novel return-to-play battery for shoulder injury/surgery: Normative values and psychometric properties

Objective: The Singapore Institute of Technology Shoulder Assessment Battery (SIT-SAB) is a novel shoulder test battery involving six different tests. It is created to aid clinicians in the return-to-play decision-making process. This study aims to establish the normative score for the SIT-SAB and assess the reliability of its scoring criteria.

Methods: This cross-sectional observational study looked at healthy adults aged 18 or older with asymptomatic shoulders and normal shoulder mobility were recruited for the study. The participants performed all the tests in the SIT-SAB, and the measurements and scores obtained were recorded. Nineteen participants returned for two additional sessions on separate days to analyse the SIT-SAB's reliability. The inter-rater, intra-rater and test–retest reliability was calculated using a two-way mixed effect International Consensus Criteria (ICC) model. The ICC coefficient and the 95% confidence interval were used to determine the reliability of the SIT-SAB.

Results: The SIT-SAB demonstrated good inter-rater, intra-rater and inter-day reliability (ICC = 0.81 (0.51–0.93), 0.97 (0.92–0.99), 0.89 (0.78–0.96), respectively) and has a mean score of 87.3 ± 10.3. The SIT-SAB scores were not correlated with any demographic, anthropometric characteristics or other factors.

Conclusion: The findings provided the normative score to be expected of a healthy Singaporean adult and showed that the scoring criteria used were stable and demonstrated good reliability. Further research is needed to establish the cut-off score required for a safe return-to-play.