OBJECTIVES: To determine the most appropriate terminology and issues related to clinical reasoning, examination and treatment of the kinetic chain (KC) in people with shoulder pain by an international experts panel.DESIGN: Delphi study METHODS: A three-round Delphi study that involved an international panel of experts with extensive clinical, teaching and research experience in the study topic was conducted. A search equation of terms related to KC in Web of Science and a manual search were used to find the experts. Participants were asked to rate items across five different domains (terminology, clinical reasoning, subjective examination, physical examination and treatment) using a 5-point Likert-type scale. An Aiken's Validity Index ≥ 0.7 was considered indicative of group consensus.RESULTS: Participation rate was 30.2% (n=16) while retention rate was high throughout the 3 rounds (100%, 93.8%, 100%). A total of 15 experts from different fields and countries completed the study. After the three rounds, consensus was reached on 102 items: 3 items were included in the "terminology" domain, 17 items in the "rationale and clinical reasoning" domain, 11 items in the "subjective examination" domain, 44 items in the "physical examination" domain and 27 items in the "treatment" domain. "Terminology" was the domain with the highest level of more agreement with two items achieving an Aiken's V of 0.93, whereas "physical examination" and "treatment" of the KC where the two areas with less consensus. Together with "terminology" items, one item from the "treatment" and two items from the "rationale and clinical reasoning" domains reached the highest level of agreement (v=0.93 and 0.92, respectively).CONCLUSION: This study defined a list of 102 items across five different domains (terminology, rationale and clinical reasoning, subjective examination, physical examination and treatment) regarding to KC in people with shoulder pain. The term KC was preferred and a definition for this concept agreed. Dysfunction of a segment in the chain (i.e., weak link) was agreed to result in altered performance or injury to distal segments. Experts considered important to assess and treat the KC in particular in throwing/overhead athletes and agreed that no one size fits all approach exist when implementing shoulder KC exercises within the rehabilitation process. Further research is now required to determine the validity of the identified items.
