Department of Physical Education, Renmin University of China, No. 59 Zhongguancun Street, Beijing, 100872, China.
Sci Rep. 2024 Jan 11;14(1):1063. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-51644-0.
A high test-retest reliability in measurement of pinch force sense is required to assess a clinical parameter accurately over a longitudinal study. Ipsilateral reproduction (IR) task and contralateral matching (CM) task have commonly been used for the assessment of force sense. To date, there has been little research on the test-retest reliability of pinch force sense utilizing the contralateral force matching task. This research aimed to explore this phenomenon across a spectrum of reference force levels (10, 30, and 50 percent maximum voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC)) using a contralateral matching task. Every participant in the study was tested twice by the same skilled experts, with each session separated by one week. Although normalized variable error indicated a poor level of reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = - 0.25 to 0.05) for these force sense tests, normalized constant error (ICC = 0.76-0.85) and normalized absolute error (ICC = 0.61-0.81) results indicated a fair to good of reliability. The lower bound of 95% CI of ICC for NAE and NCE indicated fair test-retest reliability (0.41-0.69). These findings suggest that investigators can reasonably obtain a fair to good test-retest reliability when investigating pinch force sense using the contralateral matching task. The Bland-Altman plots, SEM, and MDD95% were lower at these lower reference force level (10% MVIC) compared to the level of higher reference forces (30% and 50% MVIC). Therefore, when the reference force level increases, the participant needs a larger NAE or NCE decrease to show that their pinch force sense has indeed improved.
为了在纵向研究中准确评估临床参数，需要在测量捏力感觉时具有较高的测试-重测信度。同侧再现（IR）任务和对侧匹配（CM）任务通常用于评估力感觉。迄今为止，利用对侧力匹配任务评估捏力感觉的测试-重测信度的研究很少。本研究旨在探讨在一系列参考力水平（10%、30%和 50%最大自主等长收缩（MVIC））下使用对侧匹配任务时的这种现象。研究中的每位参与者均由同一位熟练的专家进行两次测试，两次测试之间相隔一周。尽管归一化变量误差（ICC=-0.25 至 0.05）表明这些力感觉测试的可靠性水平较差，但归一化常数误差（ICC=0.76-0.85）和归一化绝对误差（ICC=0.61-0.81）结果表明可靠性为中等至良好。NAE 和 NCE 的 95%CI 下限的 ICC 表明具有中等至良好的测试-重测可靠性（0.41-0.69）。这些发现表明，研究人员在使用对侧匹配任务研究捏力感觉时，可以合理地获得中等至良好的测试-重测可靠性。与较高的参考力水平（30%和 50%MVIC）相比，在较低的参考力水平（10%MVIC）下，Bland-Altman 图、SEM 和 MDD95%较低。因此，当参考力水平增加时，参与者需要更大的 NAE 或 NCE 减少，才能表明其捏力感觉确实有所提高。
