WHAT ARE THE BASIC DIMENSIONS OF BODY POSTURE - AN EMPIRICAL-EVALUATION OF THE COMPREHENSIVE BODY EXAMINATION - I

There has been a lack of psychometrically sound scales for physiothera peutic body examinations. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the psychometric properties of the body posture items of the Comprehensiv e Body Examination (CBE). Ninety-nine persons were examined: 17 pain s yndrome patients, 27 patients with psychoses, 4 patients with non-psyc hotic mental disorder, and a comparison group consisting of 51 student s and staff members. On the basis of a factor analysis 2 posture subsc ales were made: Peripheral flexion (PF) with seven items and Spinal fl exion (SF) with five items. Cronbach's alpha was 0.81 for the PF and 0 .61 for the SF subscale. The PF subscale proved to distinguish signifi cantly between the patient groups and normal controls, even when we co ntrolled for the use of medication. The second subscale did not distin guish significantly among the groups. The results indicate that 12 of the posture items of the CBE form 2 subscales with satisfactory psycho metric properties.