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Comparative reliability of the make and break tests for hip abduction assessment
Jeffrey Schmidt1, Jennifer Iverson, Scott Brown
1Staff Physical Therapist , Sanford Orthopedics and Sports Medicine , Southpointe, Fargo, ND , USA.
Objective:
To investigate the reliability of "make test" (MT) and "break test" (BT) of hip abduction using hand-held dynamometry.
Design:
A repeated measures reliability assessment design for the estimation of inter-rater reliability, in which pairs of testers rated each subject in a 2/3 fractional factorial was used. Both tests ("BT" and "MT") were performed on both legs twice by 2 testers, for a total of 16 ratings for each participant.
Participants:
39 healthy subjects between the ages of 21 and 70 years old volunteered.
Main Outcome Measure:
Variance components were computed from the repeated measures to assess inter-rater reliability of measurement. Reliability was estimated as a ratio of variance components.
Results:
Both tests proved to be highly reliable in nature with values above 0.87 overall. Further examination revealed that gender had a small effect on reliability, yet differences in results were noted between raters on the BT more than the MT.
Conclusions:
Hip abduction strength can be measured and reproduced between testers reliably using both a "MT" and "BT" and a long lever arm with pelvic stabilization. Statistically, the "MT" appears to be slightly more reliable than the "BT", but clinically, the "BT" is more practical and convenient.
