Introduction: The sit and reach tests are intended to assess overall lower back mobility and hamstring flexibility. Tests involve all body movements and their results may be depended of the anthropometric characteristics of the persons and joint mobility. The sit and reach tests are the most common measurement tools for evaluating hamstring and lower back flexibility because of low availability of their material, their simple and understandable procedures, it is easy to use. There are many variations of sit and reach test. Purpose: The aim of this graduation thesis was to establish the measurement properties of sit-and-reach tests in various populations, on the basis of literature review. Methods: A descriptive method of work with an overview and analysis of professional literature was used. The literature has been found in Englih with electronic database PubMed and CINAHL. Separately or in combinations we used the following keywords: hamstring flexibility, criterion-related validity, reliability, sit and reach tests. Results: Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria study included 15 studies. Two studies examined the reliability of sit and reach tests. In 8 studies researchers tested criterion-related validity of sit and reach tests. In 5 studies researchers tested reliability and criterion-related validity of sit and reach tests. Correlation coefficients of reliability showed very high interrater and intrarater reliability with range (ICC = 0,84-0,99). The resuls of criterion-related validity are very variable, in most studies (N = 11) Pearson's correlation (r) results showed moderate values of association between sit and reach tests with hamstring flexibility (r=0,40-0,69). Conclusion: Based on the obtained results, we found that all sit and reach tests have similar measurement properties, but back saver sit and reach test (r = 0,37-0,82) and modified back saver sit and reach test (r = 0,500,67) have a slightly better validity than others.
|