Abstract
Occupational therapists should use technology that has been proven valid and reliable to document objective assessment of function and to demonstrate improvement from intervention. This is a validity and reliability study of the GetMyROM smartphone application compared with a universal goniometer.
Primary Author and Speaker: Mariann Moran
Additional Authors and Speakers: Erica Pirak, Julia Zelig, Orah Jooyandehnik, Michelle Avena
Occupational therapists evaluate functional impairments and assess outcome of treatment techniques using goniometry to measure range of motion (ROM) of various joints. Occupational therapy professionals who want to embrace phone apps as technology to make their job easier or to provide feedback to clients on their progress need to ensure that these tools are valid and reliable.
The purpose of this study is to assess the reliability and validity of GetMyROM, a smartphone goniometer application, when measuring ROM of the wrist and forearm on a normal population.
Participants included 45 healthy individuals, including an employee (n = 1) and students (n = 44) from a northeastern state university. ROM measurements of wrist flexion, extension, supination, and pronation taken with a universal goniometer, which is a 6.75-in. 180° semicircle clear plastic goniometer, will be compared with the measurements of the GetMyROM smartphone application. These measurements were taken by two different researchers to establish interrater reliability with both tools.
Statistical analysis was completed to assess the concurrent validity of the smartphone application. To assess criterion validity, ICC analysis was completed and found interclass correlation (ICC) is considered poor for all four measurements with ICC scores from .426 to .008. ICC was used to determine interrater reliability for the GetMyROM smartphone application, and the ICC analysis showed moderate correlation between both researchers for extension (.588), fair correlation for flexion (.478) and supination (.346), and poor correlation for pronation (.089).
Although the smartphone GetMyROM application was not a valid or reliable tool for measuring ROM in this study, it led the researchers to make recommendations for further study. A standardized protocol needs to be established for the phone app and experienced clinicians could conduct future research assessing the reliability and validity of the GetMyROM smartphone application. These changes could help prove the reliability and validity of GetMyROM smartphone application in order feel confident to use this as an alternative, inexpensive, and convenient tool to use for clinical practice.