title: Reliability of the chin tuck neck flexion test for assessing endurance of short neck flexors in healthy individuals.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of the study was to examine of the intra-rater reliability of the chin tuck neck flexion (CTNF) test for assessing the endurance of neck flexors.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study was performed at the Cardiorespiratory laboratory of the Physiotherapy Department, School of Health and Caring Professions, TEI Lamia, Greece. Twenty healthy volunteers (males/females: 9/11, age: 22.2 ± 1.7 y ears) with no known musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, or psychiatric disorder were recruited. The participants were positioned in a supine position and were asked to raise their head 2.5 cm above the plinth and to maintain this position for as long as possible without losing craniocervical or cervical flexion. This test was repeated three times with 5-min intervals between the trials.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results showed that this test could discriminate between neck flexor endurance in men and women. However, although the test seems to be highly reliable (ICC: 0.81-0.88), it presents unsatisfactory standard error of measurement (SEM: 10.7-14.7 s) and smallest detectable differences (SDD: 80.5-110.9%). Furthermore, subgroup analysis showed the test seems to be more reliable for women (ICC: 0.93-0.94) than for men (ICC: 0.68-0.8), but the SEM and SDD values for them remain unsatisfactory (SEM: 4.4-5.3 s, SDD: 57.5-63.99%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Due to high reproducibility and discriminant validity, clinicians and researchers might want to consider using the CTNF test for the assessment of neck flexor endurance. However, they should seek alternative measurement tools when they want to avoid a large measurement error.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiotherapy, School of Health and Caring Professions, Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Lamia , Lamia , Greece and.
authors.forename: Zacharias
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Dimitriadis
authors.forename: Eleni
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kapreli
authors.forename: Nikolaos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Strimpakos
authors.forename: Jacqueline
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Oldham
mesh_terms: D002680:Chin; D005260:Female; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009334:Neck Muscles / Q000502:physiology*; D010808:Physical Examination / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012737:Sex Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Clinical test; deep neck flexors; endurance; neck; reliability; validity