Introduction: Palpation is used in physiotherapy to assess quality, morphological changes and sensitivity of tissue. Tactile perception and previous experience of the investigator is required to properly evaluate structure. To assess tactile sensitivity, tactile perception test is used by palpating the engraved symbol in tablets. Time used for tactile examination of symbols engraved on tablets and the time for its reproduction by drawing on the piece of paper correlated with accuracy scores. Purpose: The purpose of diploma work was to determine if palpation skills of first-year and last-year physiotherapy students differ. Methods: Healthy physiotherapy students of 1st year, 3rd year and a Master's program without any injuries of upper limb last six month before the study were included (n = 40). The study was made in Laboratory for Physiotherapy. For tactile perception test three wooden tablets of size 13 x 13 cm, width of the symbol lines 7 mm and depth 3 mm were used. Symbols of different difficulties were engraved in each wooden plate. Subject palpated the symbol with both hands with their eyes closed on each tablet separately and then reproduced it by drawing on a piece of paper with open eyes. The palpation time, drawing time, accuracy and difficulty (with 1-5 Likert scale) of symbol were scored. Unpaired (two sample) t test for comparison between both groups was used; linear regression was used to compare difficulty with accuracy of all symbols and also Wicoxon test, Mann-Whitney test and Kruskal-Wallis test were used to test the reliability of examiner. Statistically important results were marked at p < 0,05. Results: Last-year physiotherapy students spent more time on exploration of tablet 2 (p = 0,0014; t = 3,45) and tablet 3 (p = 0,0018; t = 3,36) in comparison to first-year physiotherapy students. Differences between groups for drawing time, accuracy and difficulty of symbols were not statistically important (p > 0,05). Bad score of drawing was related to higher difficulty with all subjects. Examiner was reliable with 96,7 % when scoring the drawings. Conclusion: Research showed that palpation skills of physiotherapy students can be related to tactile sensitivity experiences during studying, however low sample size may have determinate the results. Further research on bigger sample size should be made and compared to palpation skills of experienced physiotherapists and non-physiotherapists.
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