Measurement instruments
The researchers used Measurement instruments as follows:
The stress self-assessment test developed by the Department of Mental Health, the Ministry of Public Health was administered to assess mental stress of the participants. This short and easy-to-administer test is comprised of 20 questions with 0-3 rating scale responses. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the test was 0.84 [11].
The visual analog scale (VAS) has been chosen for the measurement on perception of pain and muscle tension using a 10-centimeter horizontal straight line without interval scale ranging from 0 (no pain) to 10 (most severe pain). The VAS has been employed in many studies [12-16] with high reliability [15, 16].
A measuring tape for assessing the pain free active cervical range of motion (CROM), in directions of flexion, extension, lateral flexion. The CROM devices that were deemed to have “good” reliability and validity [17].
Ethical considerations
This research project was approved by the 1st Ethics Review Committee For Research Involving Human Subjects, Health Science Group, Chulalongkorn University (COA No. 052/2557).
Data analysis
Demographic data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while the effectiveness of the court-type traditional Thai massage was evaluated using the paired t-test at p = 0.05.