A study to determine the norms for the trail making test for the age range of 20-49 in Turkey

Abstract

Objective: The main goal of the study is to determine the normative values of Trail Making Test (TMT) for people between 20-49 years of age; to examine the effect of age, education and sex variables over TMT scores and identify the reliability coefficient of the test. Method: The sample of the study consisted of 133 women and 130 men, 261 voluntary and healthy participants in total. The data of the research was collected according to 3x2x2 factorial experimental design; and the participants were distributed to experimental conditions well balanced in terms of the levels of age, education and sex. TMT A and B form, and Beck Depression Scale (BDS) were applied for the assessment. Results: Seven scores were calculated determining for Turkish normative values; 3x2x2 factorial multivariate variance analysis was applied in order to identify the effect of levels of age, education and sex over TMT scores. According to the results of the analyses, it was found that main effect of education was significant, while the main effects of age and sex variables were not (p<.05). The test-retest reliability coefficients of the TMT changed between .71 and .87. Conclusion: This study indicated that especially the TMT B and subtest scores were affected by the education in the range of 20-49 years of age. Additionally, normative values depending on the means of TMT scores for 20-49 age group were obtained in the study; it was shown that TMT was a reliable assessment tool.