Abstract
Objective
To examine the psychometric and clinimetric properties of the Melbourne Assessment
2 (MA2), an outcome measurement that is increasingly used in clinical studies.
Design
Psychometric and clinimetric study.
Setting
Community.
Participants
Seventeen children with cerebral palsy (CP) from 5 to 12 years were recruited for
the estimation of the test-retest reliability and minimal detectable change (MDC).
Thirty-five children with CP were recruited to receive an 8-week intensive neurorehabilitation
intervention to estimate the validity, responsiveness, and minimal clinically important
difference (MCID).
Interventions
Thirty-five children with CP received upper limb neurorehabilitation programs for
8 weeks.
Main Outcome Measures
The MA2 and the criterion measures, including the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor
Proficiency, 2nd edition (BOT-2), the Box and Blocks Test (BBT), and the Pediatric
Motor Activity Log–Revised (PMAL-R), were evaluated at pretreatment and posttreatment.
Results
The MA2 has 4 subscales: range of motion, fluency, accuracy, and dexterity. The test-retest
reliability of the MA2 is high (intraclass correlation coefficient, .92–.98). The
significant relationships between the MA2 and BBT, BOT-2, and PMAL-R support its validity.
The significance of paired t test results (P<.001) and large magnitudes of the standardized response mean (1.70–2.00) confirm
the responsiveness of the MA2. The MDC values of the 4 subscales of the MA2 are 2.85,
1.63, 1.97, and 1.84, respectively, and the suggested MCID values of these 4 subscales
are 2.35, 3.20, 2.09, and 2.22, respectively, indicating the minimum scores of improvement
to be interpreted as both statistically significant and clinically important.
Conclusions
The study findings indicate that the MA2 has sound psychometric and clinimetric properties
and is thus an adequate measurement for research and clinical applications.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
BBT (Box and Blocks Test), BOT-2 (Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, 2nd Edition), CP (cerebral palsy), ICC (intraclass correlation coefficient), MA (Melbourne Assessment), MA2 (Melbourne Assessment 2), MCID (minimal clinically important difference), MDC (minimal detectable change), PMAL-R (Pediatric Motor Activity Log–Revised), ROM (range of motion)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 28, 2017
Footnotes
Supported in part by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST 103-2314-B-002-008-MY3, MOST 104-2218-E-002-013) and National Taiwan University (grant no. 105R7810).
Disclosures: none.
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine
