The intra- and inter-rater reliability of the tragus wall distance (TWD) measurement in non-pathological participants ages 18-34.

Autor: Shipe NK; Graduate School of Physical Therapy, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, PA, USA. nancy.shipe@sru.edu, Billek-Sawhney B, Canter TA, Meals DJ, Nestler JM, Stumpff JL
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Physiotherapy theory and practice [Physiother Theory Pract] 2013 May; Vol. 29 (4), pp. 328-34. Date of Electronic Publication: 2012 Oct 08.
DOI: 10.3109/09593985.2012.727528
Abstrakt: Objectives: To assess intra-rater and inter-rater reliability of the tragus wall distance (TWD) measurement in non-pathologic individuals aged 18-34.
Background: Physical therapists evaluate posture as a component of health status. A literature review suggests need for reliable clinical tools to assess head position.
Methods: The TWD measurement is the horizontal distance between the tragus, the auricular cartilaginous flap anterior to the external auditory meatus, and a wall. Sixty-three adults aged 18-34 years were consecutively assigned to three raters for double-blinded repeated measures of TWD distance. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics of the sample, interclass correlation coefficient (ICC), analysis of variance (ANOVA), t-tests (p < 0.05), and Pearson correlation coefficients to quantify correlations between raters and repeated measures.
Results: ANOVA results for intra-rater reliability indicated consistency among individual raters. All raters demonstrated significant correlations across repeated measures, ICC = 0.92-0.94. ANOVA and t-test results did not support inter-rater reliability. However, ICC = 0.90, standard error of measurement = 0.22, and Pearson R = 0.84 supported inter-rater reliability. The evidence suggests that although the absolute TWD measurement values may not be reliable among raters, relative change between TWD measures demonstrates high inter-rater reliability.
Conclusions: TWD measurement has high intra-rater reliability. TWD measurement of a single patient by multiple raters is not supported.
Databáze: MEDLINE
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