Trail Making Test: normative data for Turkish elderly population by age, sex and education.
OBJECTIVE
Trail Making Test (TMT) is a neuropsychological test, which has parts A and B that can precisely measure executive functions, like complex visual-motor conceptual screening, planning, organization, abstract thinking and response inhibition. The main purpose of this study is to standardize TMT for Turkish adults and/or elderly population. This study primarily consists of two main parts; norm determination study and reliability/validity studies, respectively.


METHODS
The standardization study was carried on 484 participants (238 female and 246 male). Participants at the age of 50 years and older were selected from a pool of people employed in or retired from governmental and/or private institutions. The research design of this study involves the following variables mainly; age (7 subgroups), sex (2 subgroups) and education (3 subgroups).


RESULTS
Age, sex and education variables have significant influence on eight different kinds of TMT scores. Statistical analysis by ANOVA revealed a major effect of age (p<0.001) and education (p<0.001) on time spent in Part A or B, or time difference between Parts B and A, or sum of Parts A and B. Similarly, influence of sex (p<0.05) on time spent on Part A or B, or sum of Parts A and B was shown to be significant. Kruskal-Wallis Test was performed and chi-square (chi(2)) values revealed that, correction scores for Part A and B were found to be influenced by age groups (p<0.001). Test-retest reliability and inter-rater reliability coefficients for time scores of Parts A and B were estimated as 0.78, 0.99 and 0.73, 0.93, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
This study provides normative data for a psychometric tool that reliably measures the executive functions in Turkish elderly population at the age of 50 and over.
Cangoz
Banu
B
Hacettepe University, Department of Psychology, Turkey. banucan@hacettepe.edu.tr
Karakoc
Ebru
E
Selekler
Kaynak
K
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013997:Time Factors; D014145:Trail Making Test; D014421:Turkey