[Validity and reliability of the "Trail Making Peg" test as a performance measurement for evaluating the cognitive function].

ABSTRACT

AIM: To investigate the validity and reliability of a novel performance test, called the "Trail Making Peg" (TMP) test, for evaluating the cognitive function. METHODS: We recruited 632 community-dwelling older adults (mean age 73.3±5.2 years) as subjects for the assessment of the validity of the test and 319 adults (mean age 73.1±5.2 years) as subjects for the assessment of reliability. Five cognitive tests (5-Cog) were used to evaluate the cognitive function, and the degree of cognitive decline was delineated for subjects scoring below 1 SD from the mean 5-Cog score. A receiver operating characteristic analysis was employed to calculate the cut-off point. RESULTS: There were no sex differences in the TMP scores (P=0.951), and the TMP and 5-Cog scores were found to correlate significantly (r=-0.63) with each other. The Trail Making Peg test demonstrated an area under the curve of 0.855 for discriminating between non-cognitive decline and cognitive decline. At this cutoff point, the sensitivity was 85% and the specificity was 69%. The intraclass correlation coefficient of the TMP was 0.746. CONCLUSIONS: The TMP exhibits sufficient validity and reliability. Our results suggest that TMP is a useful screening test for detecting cognitive decline.