Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare less experienced veterinarians’ subjective assessments of lameness in horses on the lunge. Previous studies on subjective lameness evaluation have mainly focused on horses trotting in a straight line and the results have shown generally low compliance. With a web-based questionnaire, 43 veterinarians assessed 60 recordings that showed both fore- and hindlimb lameness, interspersed with sound horses that were trotting on the lunge in one direction. The horses showed mild to moderate lameness. To evaluate the within-observer agreement ten of the films were repeated. The veterinarians were to identify which limb the horse was lame on and which limb they would choose to start examine. They were also to score the lameness on a scale from 0 - 5. The compliance was calculated statistically by using the Fleiss' and Cohen's kappa. The result indicates that there is low compliance between less experienced veterinarians subjective assessments when it comes to assessing which limb the horse is lame on and to grade lameness and that the within-observer agreement is low.