A valid and reliable clinical determination of footedness.
OBJECTIVE
To develop a valid and reliable clinical performance measure of foot dominance.


METHODS
Prospective cross-sectional study with repeated measures.


METHODS
Laboratory.


METHODS
A total of 175 healthy male and female subjects ages 16 to 37 years.


METHODS
A total of 12 lower limb functional performance skilled and unskilled tasks.


METHODS
Internal consistency and reliability of selected measures.


RESULTS
Principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation resulted in tasks being grouped into 3 components with Eigen values greater than 1, which explained 55% of the variance. An inventory of 4 skilled component tasks was found to reliably determine footedness. Internal consistency derived from Cronbach's alpha produced a value of 0.819 for the skilled tasks. Three of the 4 skilled tasks were found to have excellent reliability (>0.75) with almost perfect agreement.


CONCLUSIONS
Determining foot dominance is important in a rehabilitation setting, considering the normal laterality variation in cerebral hemisphere function, limb morphology, and motor performance parameters encountered in humans. This study developed an inventory of skilled performance tasks to reliably determine footedness. Four bilateral tasks were identified that had excellent test-retest reliability and high internal consistency and are recommended as global determinants of footedness.
Schneiders
Anthony G
AG
Department of Physiotherapy, University of Otago, 325 Great King Street, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand. Tony.Schneiders@otago.ac.nz
Sullivan
S John
SJ
O'Malley
Kate J
KJ
Clarke
Stephanie V
SV
Knappstein
Stuart A
SA
Taylor
Lauren J
LJ
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005528:Foot / Q000502:physiology*; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult