Reliability, agreement, and responsiveness of a 6-minute walk/run test in patients with heart disease

Background: The 6-minute walk test (6MWT) is widely used to assess exercise tolerance in cardiac rehabilitation (CR). However, previous research shows it to be insufficiently responsive, especially for patients with a relatively high maximal exercise tolerance at baseline. We therefore designed a 6-minute walk/run test (6MWRT), which has the same duration as the 6MWT but allows running. The objective of this study was to determine the test–retest reproducibility and responsiveness of this 6MWRT.Design: Responsiveness was investigated in a prospective cohort study among a group of patients entering CR at Maastricht University Medical Center, with a cross-sectional part to assess the test–retest reproducibility.Methods: Test–retest reproducibility (reliability and agreement) was investigated using the intraclass correlation (ICC) and a Bland–Altman plot of two measurements implemented in the first week of rehabilitation. Responsiveness of the 6MWT and the 6MWRT was calculated using the standard response mea...