Development of Korean Neurobehavioral Test Battery -Assessment of the Validity of Traditional and Computerized Neurobehavioral Tests-

한국형 신경행동검사 배터리의 개발 -면접과 컴퓨터 신경행동검사의 타당성 평가-

Aim. A neurobehavioral test for workers exposed to organic solvents in the workplace can be affected by many factors : age, education, motivation, ethnicity, etc. To apply more suitable neurobehavioral test for Korean workers, we evaluated the validity of several items of computerized and traditional neurobehavioral tests. Methods. We have applied eleven tests : four items of computerized neurobehavioral test(Swedish Performance Evaluation System) including Addition, Symbol-Digit, Dig-it Span, and Finger tapping speed, and seven items of traditional neurobehavioral test consisting of Addition, Digit-Symbol, Digit Span, Benton visual retention test, Pursuit aiming, Pegboard, and Tapping. These tests were performed on 96 workers exposed to solvents, and 100 reference workers. The concurrent and construct validities were evaluated by group difference, correlation with age, educational level, hippuric acid level, neurotoxic symptom, current exposure level, multitrait-multimethod matrix, fator analysis, and discriminant analysis. Results. Statistically significant differences were observed between the workers exposed to solvents and referents in computerized Symbol-Digit, Finger tapping speed, traditional Digit-Symbol and Pegboard. The computerized Symbol-Digit, traditional Digit-Symbol, Addition, Benton visual retention test, and Pegboard were found to be related to the age. The performance of computerized Symbol-Digit, Addition, and traditional Digit-Symbol were found to be related to the educational level significantly. The computerized Symbol-Digit, Finger tapping speed, and traditional Digit-Symbol were found to be related to hippuric acid, and neurotoxic symptom. The discriminability of Finger tapping speed, and Pegboard was better than the other tests. In discriminant analysis, the model with two variables, the computerized Symbol-Digit and Pegboard, classified almost 70 percent of the workers correctly. Conclusions. These results suggest that the computerized Symbol-Digit, Finger tapping speed, and Pegboard are more satisfactory for our purpose, and the Addition, Tapping, Benton visual retention test, and Pursuit aiming are less valid than other items. These may allow the reasonable selection of core neurobehavioral tests for workers exposed to solvents in Korea.

우리나라 근로자의 특성과 산업보건 현실에 적합한 신경행동검사들을 선택하기 위하여 지금까지 국내의 일부 연구에서 사용되었던 신경행동검사들의 타당도를 비교평가하였다. 대구지역의 중소규모 사업장에서 톨루엔, 크실렌, 메틸에틸케톤, 이소프로필알콜, 메탄올에 폭로되는 유기용제 폭로군 96명과 대조군 100명을 대상으로 인구학적 변수와 직업관련 변수를 조사하고, 컴퓨터 신경행동검사 네 가지 검사항목(숫자 더하기, 부호숫자 짝짓기, 숫자 외우기, 손가락 두드리기)과 면접식 신경행동검사 일곱 가지 검사항목(Benton visual retention 검사, 숫자 외우기, 숫자부호 짝짓기, 숫자 더하기, 목적점찍기, 핀꼽기, 막대 두드리기)을 수행하였다. 11개의 신경행동검사 항목들 중 지각과 반응속도 영역에서 컴퓨터 부호숫자 짝짓기, 운동영역에서 컴퓨터 손가락 두드리기 및 미세운동영역에서 핀꼽기의 유사영역의 다른 검사에 비해 타당도가 상대적으로 높은 것으로 평가되었다. 이러한 결과는 산업장 근로자의 중추신경계장애의 선별을 위한 신경행동검사의 선택에 도움이 될 것으로 생각되나 대상자의 폭로기간이 길지 않고 폭로력과 재현성을 고려하지 못한 제한점을 가진다.