Diagnostic Efficiency of the Trail Making Test as a Function of Cut-off Score, Diagnosis, and Age

Abstract

This study is a reinvestigation of the effectiveness of the Trail Making Test in discriminating between brain-damaged ( n = 51) and pseudoneurologic ( n = 72) subjects. All subjects were hospitalized male veterans at the Allen Park Veterans Administration Hospital. An analysis of covariance showed that the pseudoneurologic subjects performed at a significantly higher level than the brain-damaged subjects. Further analysis with two different cutoff scores exhibited unequal discriminatory power throughout the whole range of Trail Making Test scores. These results suggested diagnosing only when the scores were 9 or lower and 13 or higher. This use of extreme scores resulted in an over-all hit rate of 87% in the study. Comparisons with five major subgroupings of the pseudoneurologic subjects yielded only one significant difference: more accurate discrimination with the 12 cut-off score between 10 general-medical and peripheral nerve-damaged subjects (100% correct) and 18 psychotic subjects (39% accuracy).