A novel metric of reliability in pressure pain threshold measurement

Sci Rep. 2021 Mar 25;11(1):6944. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-86344-6.

Abstract

The inter-session Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) is a commonly investigated and clinically important metric of reliability for pressure pain threshold (PPT) measurement. However, current investigations do not account for inter-repetition variability when calculating inter-session ICC, even though a PPT measurement taken at different sessions must also imply different repetitions. The primary aim was to evaluate and report a novel metric of reliability in PPT measurement: the inter-session-repetition ICC. One rater recorded ten repetitions of PPT measurement over the lumbar region bilaterally at two sessions in twenty healthy adults using a pressure algometer. Variance components were computed using linear mixed-models and used to construct ICCs; most notably inter-session ICC and inter-session-repetition ICC. At 70.1% of the total variance, the source of greatest variability was between subjects ([Formula: see text] = 222.28 N2), whereas the source of least variability (1.5% total variance) was between sessions ([Formula: see text] = 4.83 N2). Derived inter-session and inter-session-repetition ICCs were 0.88 (95%CI: 0.77 to 0.94) and 0.73 (95%CI: 0.53 to 0.84) respectively. Inter-session-repetition ICC provides a more conservative estimate of reliability than inter-session ICC, with the magnitude of difference being clinically meaningful. Quantifying individual sources of variability enables ICC construction to be reflective of individual testing protocols.

Publication types

  • Observational Study

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Female
  • Healthy Volunteers
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Neurologic Examination
  • Pain Threshold*
  • Pressure
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Young Adult