Affiliations 

  • 1 Institute for Public Health Malaysia
  • 2 Universiti Teknologi MARA
MyJurnal

Abstract

This study sought to examine the reliability and validity of height measurements using a portable
stadiometer as compared to a mechanical scale. Samples from 142 adults aged 22 to 57 were taken during data collection in November 2014. There was a high degree of reliability for the inter-examiner, intraexaminer and inter-instrument aspects with regards to mean difference, the inter correlation coefficient (ICC) and Bland-Altman Plot. For the inter-examiner aspect, the height measurement taken by the first examiner was 0.01 cm higher than that by the second examiner with an ICC of 0.999. For the intraexaminer aspect, the difference was 0.1 cm; this was higher in the first measurement compared to the second. The ICC was also 0.999. For the inter-instrument aspect, measurement taken by stadiometer was 0.61 cm higher than the measurement taken by mechanical scale and the ICC was 0.997. The Bland-Altman plot showed a distribution of differences between measurements in the inter-examiner, intraexaminer and inter-instrument aspects that were close to zero within the narrow range of ±1.96SD. The technical error of measurement (TEM), coefficient of reliability (R) and coefficient of variation (CV) for the inter-examiner, intra-examiner and inter-instrument aspects were within the acceptable limits. This study suggests that the portable stadiometer is reliable and valid for use in community surveys.