The Chinese version of the test of everyday attention can be used to diagnose attention deficits after brain injury / 中华物理医学与康复杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the value of the Chinese version of the test of everyday attention (TEA) for diagnosing attention deficit after brain injury, and to determine the best cut-off value for each subtest.Methods:A total of 117 healthy adults and 33 brain-injured patients were evaluated using the TEA (Chinese version). The original scores of each sub-test were obtained and statistically compared between the control group and the brain injury group. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves were used to determine the optimal cutoff values in each subtest for diagnosing attention deficits.Results:Significant differences were found between the two groups. Except for the elevator counting test, the area under the ROC curves of all the other subtests (Map Search, Elevator Counting with Distraction, Visual Elevator, Elevator Counting with Reversal, Telephone Search, Telephone Search while Counting and lottery) were between 0.795 and 0.955. The average sensitivities were in the range 74.1-97.0% and the specificities were 58.8% to 94.1%. Maximum Youden indices were used to determine optimal diagnostic cut-off values for each subtest.Conclusions:The TEA (Chinese version) has good clinical applicability. It can be used to diagnose and differentiate different types of attention deficits.