Swait Gabrielle, Rushton Alison Beverley, Miall R Christopher, Newell David
McTimoney College of Chiropractic, Abingdon, United Kingdom.
Spine (Phila Pa 1976). 2007 Nov 15;32(24):E692-701. doi: 10.1097/BRS.0b013e31815a5a1b.
A test-retest design evaluated stability as well as within and between day reliability.
The study aimed to define optimum protocols for the cervical joint position error (JPE) and cervicocephalic kinesthesia tests and to investigate association between performances in the tests.
The cervical JPE and cervicocephalic kinesthesia tests are proposed as measures of cervical proprioception. However, there has been little investigation of the number of trials needed to obtain stable and reliable estimates of performance. Both tests have potential limitations in reflecting the underlying construct of cervical proprioception and association between performances in both has not been investigated previously.
Head repositioning and head-tracking errors were measured using an electromagnetic-tracking system in 16 normal subjects, tested on 3 occasions over 2 days. The effect of different numbers of trial repeats was analyzed descriptively in terms of stability of measures obtained and by using intraclass correlation coefficients to assess reliability. Association between the tests was analyzed with the Pearson correlation coefficient.
Stable estimates of performance were obtained when data from 6 or more trials was included. The greatest test-retest reliability was obtained with 5 or more trials in both the cervical JPE (intraclass correlation coefficients = 0.73-0.84) and cervicocephalic kinesthesia (intraclass correlation coefficients = 0.90-0.97) tests. Correlation analyses indicated no significant association between performances in the 2 tests (r = -0.476-0.228, P > 0.05).
Our finding that at least 6 trials were needed to optimize stability, and reliability of outcome measures has important implications for application of these tests. The lack of correlation between performances in the tests supports the suggestion that they are not comparable measures of cervical proprioception. Further planned studies will include a range of tests challenging different aspects of cervical proprioceptive contribution to sensorimotor control in different subcategories of neck pain patients.
采用重测设计评估稳定性以及日内和日间可靠性。
本研究旨在确定颈椎关节位置误差（JPE）和头颈动觉测试的最佳方案，并研究这些测试结果之间的相关性。
颈椎JPE和头颈动觉测试被提议作为评估颈椎本体感觉的方法。然而，对于获得稳定可靠的测试结果所需的试验次数，目前研究较少。这两种测试在反映颈椎本体感觉的潜在结构方面都可能存在局限性，且此前尚未对两者之间的相关性进行研究。
使用电磁跟踪系统测量16名正常受试者的头部重新定位和头部跟踪误差，在两天内进行3次测试。通过描述获得的测量结果的稳定性，并使用组内相关系数评估可靠性，来分析不同重复试验次数的影响。使用Pearson相关系数分析测试之间的相关性。
当纳入6次或更多试验的数据时，可获得稳定的测试结果。在颈椎JPE测试（组内相关系数=0.73 - 0.84）和头颈动觉测试（组内相关系数=0.90 - 0.97）中，进行5次或更多试验时，重测可靠性最高。相关性分析表明，这两种测试结果之间无显著相关性（r = -0.476 - 0.228，P>0.05）。
我们的研究发现，至少需要6次试验才能优化结果测量的稳定性和可靠性，这对这些测试的应用具有重要意义。测试结果之间缺乏相关性支持了这样的观点，即它们不是评估颈椎本体感觉的可比指标。进一步的计划研究将包括一系列测试，挑战不同类型颈部疼痛患者颈椎本体感觉对感觉运动控制不同方面的贡献。
