Interinstrument agreement of hand dynamometer measurement in hospitalized children.

BACKGROUND

Handgrip is a simple and useful parameter used in the diagnosis and follow-up of nutrition disorders and a prognostic indicator for health status. However, data on the measurement of handgrip strength in the pediatric population are limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the inter-instrument agreement and validity of commonly used hand dynamometers in hospitalized children.

METHODS

This is a cross-sectional study comparing handgrip strength measurement with Jamar and Takei dynamometers in hospitalized children aged 6-16 years. Intraclass correlations, Pearson correlation, and Bland-Altman analyses were used to assess validity as the level of agreement between devices.

RESULTS

Twenty-nine children with a median age of 9 years, 62.1% of whom were male, with metabolic-endocrine and infectious diseases as the main reason for hospital admission were included in the study. The intraclass correlations values between the two devices are 0.928 and 0.872 in the dominant and nondominant hands, respectively. Handgrip strength measured with Takei was greater than Jamar for both the dominant and nondominant hands (P < 0.001) per Bland-Altman analysis.

CONCLUSION

Our results show that despite good or excellent reliability, there is poor agreement between devices, indicating a lack of validity. There is a need for improved methods and standardization specific to this population for the use of handgrip strength in pediatric hospitalized patients.