Title: Reliability analysis of Finometer and AGE-Reader devices in a clinical research trial

Authors: Anna Deltsidou; Vasilios Zarikas; Dimos Mastrogiannis; Eleni Kapreli; Dimitrios Bourdas; Elpiniki Papageorgiou; Vasilios Raftopoulos; Maria Noula; Maria Lambadiari; Katerina Lykeridou

Addresses: Midwifery Department, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, Athens, Greece ' Department of Electrical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Sterea Ellada, Lamia, Greece; School of Engineering, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan ' Department of Nursing, Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Sterea Ellada, Lamia, Greece ' Department of Physiotherapy, Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Sterea Ellada, Lamia, Greece ' Department of Sports Medicine & Biology of Exercise, Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Science, Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece ' Department of Informatics and Computer Technology, Technological Education Institute (TEI) of Sterea Ellada, Lamia, Greece ' Department of Nursing, Technological University of Cyprus, Limassol, Cyprus ' Nursing Program, University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus ' Midwifery Department, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, Athens, Greece ' Midwifery Department, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, Athens, Greece

Abstract: Fundamental issues emerging from the widespread use of non-invasive techniques in healthcare sciences' research are the reliability and validity. This work presents the reliability analysis of a clinical trial that uses a Finometer and an AGE Reader. The aim is to provide a self-consistent and meaningful reliability analysis concerning Finometer and AGE-Reader devices, something that is often missing in the research field of healthcare sciences and present results could be used to fill up this gap. Since four raters are used for taking measurements in this study, the presented reliability analysis includes tests for the raters as well as for the instruments' internal consistency of the instruments. It was found that both the reported inter-rater reliability and instruments' reliability of internal consistency were found adequately high. In conclusion, Finometer and AGE-Reader devices showed high reliability and the present results can be used as a concrete basis for future studies utilising these devices.

Keywords: reliability; analysis; Finometer; AGE Reader; internal consistency.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRS.2017.088550

International Journal of Reliability and Safety, 2017 Vol.11 No.1/2, pp.78 - 96

Received: 08 Sep 2016
Accepted: 08 Sep 2017
Published online: 11 Dec 2017 *

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