Comparative analysis of the six-minute walk test in healthy children and adolescents

Objective: To perform a comparative analysis of the six-minute walk test in healthy children and adolescents in corridors of 30.5m (100 feet) 20m (65.6 feet) in length. Methods: We evaluated 67 participants (36 boys and 31 girls), aged 7 to 14 years old, from public schools of a city in a metropolitan area. All were submitted to four walking tests, two in each of the corridors. The variables analyzed were: walked distance, work rate, mean blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen saturation. Statistical analysis was performed using one-way ANOVA for repeated measures and significance level at p <= 0.05. Results: The comparison between the tests in each corridor and between the best tests in the different corridors did not show significant differences in the blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen saturation. The walked distance was not statistically different in the two tests on each corridor. However, the participants covered greater distances on the 30.5m corridor (p<0.05) compared to the best test between corridors. However, this increase was less than 10%. Regarding the cardiac overload and the work rate, there were no significant differences between the corridors. Conclusions: There were differences in walked distance between the corridors, however they were less than 10% with no significant changes in the other measured parameters. Therefore, the 20m corridor had a good reproducibility for the population of this study.