Validity and reliability of smartphone-based Goniometer-Pro app for measuring the thoracic kyphosis.

BACKGROUND CONTEXT

It is important to precisely measure thoracic kyphosis while examining the patients and studying effectiveness of therapeutic treatments.

PURPOSE

The present study evaluates validity as well as intra- and inter-rater reliability of health-related Goniometer-Pro android app in measuring thoracic kyphosis.

METHODS

A total number of 31 subjects were examined to validate using markers and measures of the proposed method to mark the spinous process, palpation, and radiologic imaging in the sagittal plane to obtain the thoracic curvature using Cobb method. Moreover, 40 subjects were examined for reliability by applying an evaluator at three occasions with an interval of one week (intra-rater) and three different evaluators at the same place and day (inter-rater).

RESULTS

Findings indicated that there was no significant difference between Cobb angle and the angle from the proposed method in thoracic curvature (p > 0.5). However, significant correlation was observed for the thoracic (r = 0.81, P = 0.000) with an ICC of 0.89. Intra- and inter-rater measurements were significantly correlated.

CONCLUSION

Our proposed method using Goniometer-Pro android app is highly reliable and accurate in determining thoracic curvature values.