Validity of the Occupational Therapy-Drive Home Maze Test for right and left handed test takers

The Occupational Therapy-Drive Home Maze Test (OT-DHMT) is part of the OT-DORA Battery used in licensing recommendations for older and/or functionally impaired drivers. Previously published research has been conducted to investigate the predictive validity, inter-rater reliability and establish norms for this timed test with normal and cognitively impaired drivers. Anecdotal evidence from this research indicated there could be a bias against right-handers (dextrals) who may need to lift their hand to view the maze, thus increasing the time taken. Therefore this study investigated the validity of the OT-DHMT when administered to left and right handed individuals. The OT-DHMT was individually administered to a new sample of 144 healthy drivers aged 18-69 years. From this, 34 participant pairs were matched for age and gender, according to their dexterity. The results show that there were no significant differences in time taken when completing the maze test, for participants who complete the test with either writing hand t(33) = 1.59, p = 0.12 (95%CI: -0.63 to 5.08). While further testing is required with samples from different cultures and with more participants aged 30-69 and 70 years and over to extend generalizability of these findings, the results suggest the OT-DHMT is suitable to be administered and scored using the methods published as part of the OT-DORA Battery.