Validity and Reliability of Kinovea Software in Evaluation of Shoulder Joint Position Sense in Female Volleyball Players

The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the kinovea software in assessing the position sense of shoulder joint in female volleyball players.

15 females of women's volleyball team of University of Tabriz (19-23 aged) participated at this study voluntarily. The active flexion and abduction range of motion of the shoulder joint at three different angles of 45, 80 and135 degrees were assessed using goniometer and photography (kinovea software) methods. All tests were done in both eyes open and eyes closed conditions. The reconstruction angle and reconstruction error were calculated and used for proprioception analysis. The obtained data were analyzed using spss26 software and Pearson correlation method with significance level of 0.05. To evaluate the validity of kinova software, the correlation between the results of kinovea and goniometer was calculated. The test-retest method was also used in the investigation of reliability of kinova measurements. The results showed significant positive correlations between the two measurement methods in all three flexion angles of shoulder joint while open and closed eyes conditions. A similar result was seen in shoulder abduction. Also, the results showed that kinovea measurements had high reliability for investigating the proprioception of shoulder joint (P<0.05).

The kinovea software is a valid and reliabel method to measure the shoulder joint position sense. So, the use of kinovea software is recommended at medical and rehabilitation centers and sport’s environments as a free open access and suitable method for position sense measurement of shoulder joint.