降低電腦化數字警醒測驗應用於中風患者之隨機測量誤差：初步研究

The Computerized Digit Vigilance Test (C-DVT) is an efficient and valid measure of sustained attention that has a great potential to be used routinely in clinical settings. However, the random measurement error of the C-DVT remains large. The purpose of this study was to investigate potential methods of administration to minimize random measurement errors of the C-DVT. Test-retest reliability and practice effects of these methods were also compared. Sixteen patients with stroke were randomly assigned to two groups (i.e., ＂increased practice time＂ and ＂averaging two assessments＂) with each of 8 patients. The results of the original C-DVT group were extracted from the ＂averaging two assessments＂ group (i.e., the first testing at the pre- and post-assessments). Regarding the random measurement error, we found that both ＂increased practice time＂ (19.4%) and ＂averaging two assessments＂ (21.4%) groups had smaller percentages of minimal detectable change than that of the ＂original C-DVT group＂ (22.9%). Considering test-retest reliability, only the ＂averaging two assessments＂ group had a higher intraclass correlation coefficient (0.74) than that (0.69~0.70) of the others. About practice effect, both ＂increased practice time＂ (d = 0.34) and ＂averaging two assessment sets＂ (0.37) groups had smaller effect sizes than that (0.39) of the ＂original C-DVT＂ group. Our findings support that increased practice time has the potential to reduce random measurement errors of the CDVT; whilst averaging two assessments may be a better choice for reducing test-retest reliability and practice effect. Further study can verify effect of increased practice time on random measurement error with a larger sample size.