Development of Korean Neurobehavioral Test Battery - Assessment of the Validity of Traditional and Computerized Neurobehavioral Tests / 예방의학회지

Aim. A neurobehavioral test for workers exposed to organic solvents in the workplace can be affected by many factors : age, education, motivation, ethnicity, etc. To apply more suitable neurobehavioral test for Korean workers, we evaluated the validity of several items of computerized and traditional neurobehavioral tests. Methods. We have applied eleven tests : four items of computerized neurobehavioral test(Swedish Performance Evaluation System) including Addition, Symbol-Digit, Digit Span, and Finger tapping speed, and seven items of traditional neurobehavioral test consisting of Addition, Digit-Symbol , Digit Span, Benton visual retention test, Pursuit aiming, Pegboard, and Tapping. These tests were performed on 96 workers exposed to solvents, and 100 reference workers. The concurrent and construct validities were evaluated by group difference, correlation with age, educational level, hippuric acid level, neurotoxic symptom, current exposure level, multitrait-multimethod matrix, factor analysis, and discriminant analysis. Results. Statistically significant differences were observed between the workers exposed to solvents and referents in computerized Symbol-Digit, Finger tapping speed, traditional Digit-Symbol and Pegboard. The computerized Symbol-Digit, traditional Digit-Symbol, Addition, Benton visual retention test, and Pegboard were found to be related to the age. The performance of computerized Symbol-Digit, Addition, and traditional Digit-Symbol were found to be related to the educational level significantly. The computerized Symbol-Digit, Finger tapping speed, and traditional Digit-Symbol were found to be related to hippuric acid, and neurotoxic symptom. The discriminability of Finger tapping speed, and Pegboard was better than the other tests. In discriminant analysis, the model with two variables, the computerized Symbol-Digit and Pegboard, classified almost 70 percent of the workers correctly. Conclusions. These results suggest that the computerized Symbol-Digit, Finger tapping speed, and Pegboard are more satisfactory for our purpose, and the Addition, Tapping, Benton visual retention test, and Pursuit aiming are less valid than other items. These may allow the reasonable selection of core neurobehavioral tests for workers exposed to solvents in Korea.

Effect on Computerized Neurobehavioral Test Performance of the Car Painters Exposed to Organic Solvents / 예방의학회지

A cross-sectional study was performed to evaluate the effects of chronic low-dose sol-vent on neurobehavioral performance of 118 male car painters. A control group of 113 workers matched for age was selected from different sections of the factory. The mean age and the mean duration of employment were 33 years and 6.7 years in both groups. Mean years of education were 11.4 years in car painters and 11.8 years in controls. Each worker completed a medical and occupational questionnaire and four tests of Swedish performance evaluation system. These included simple reaction time, symbol digit, digit span and finger tapping speed. Although the mean duration of employment was 6.7 years, comparison of mean performance showed a significantly poorer performance on simple reaction time (P<0.05), symbol digit (p<0.01) and digit span(p<0.05) in car painters. In univariate analysis, age and educational level contributed to poorer performance on symbol digit and digit span smoking appeared to slow finger tapping speed in car painters. Performance of four tests of car painters exposed to high level of solvent was poorer than that of car painters exposed to low level. In multiple regression models, controlling for age, alcohol, smoking and shift work, solvent exposure was found to be associated with performance of simple reaction time, symbol digit and digit span and exposure to high level of solvent was related to poorer performance of symbol digit and digit span.