In many instances , no or minimal attempts to screen were undertaken or reported .
Background Subacromial shoulder pain is a common clinical presentation with much diagnostic uncertainty .
Some of this uncertainty relates to the involvement of the cervical spine as a source or contribution to subacromial shoulder pain .
Currently , there is no accepted method of screening of the cervical spine in the presence of subacromial shoulder pain , which risks patients receiving misguided and /or ineffective interventions .
Objective To evaluate approaches used to screen the cervical spine in patients with subacromial shoulder pain .
A pilot randomized, controlled trial of treatment for painful arc of the shoulder.
There is a lack of evidence about the efficacy of routinely used interventions in shoulder pain , such as corticosteroid injection and physiotherapy . This pilot study was set up to assess the feasibility of a larger , r and omized controlled trial . Patients with the clinical presentation of a painful arc of less than 6 months ' duration were recruited through their general practitioners . A total of 112 patients were r and omized to 4 groups :  control , physiotherapy , a course of subacromial steroid injections , or both physiotherapy and steroid injections . The primary outcome measure was the Oxford Shoulder Score ( OSS ) . Follow-up was 18 weeks and by postal question naire at 1 year . No significant differences were found within groups between the OSS scores or the Physical Health total of the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36 ( SF-36 ) Health Survey at the beginning and end of the trial or at 1 year . By analysis of covariance , no significant differences were found between treatment groups . Larger studies are needed . A power calculation from our data suggests recruitment of more than 800 patients would be required to achieve a 90 % chance of a clinical ly significant difference being detected between these groups
In many instances , no or minimal attempts to screen were undertaken or reported .
Background Subacromial shoulder pain is a common clinical presentation with much diagnostic uncertainty .
Some of this uncertainty relates to the involvement of the cervical spine as a source or contribution to subacromial shoulder pain .
Currently , there is no accepted method of screening of the cervical spine in the presence of subacromial shoulder pain , which risks patients receiving misguided and /or ineffective interventions .
Objective To evaluate approaches used to screen the cervical spine in patients with subacromial shoulder pain .