Abstract
Critically ill or immobilized patients are unable to stand for their height to be measured; therefore, knee height measurement is a useful proxy. In order to address this problem, a lot of research has been carried out worldwide to create equations to estimate the stature of adults. However, knee and total height may differ among racial/ethnic groups. This study therefore determined the applicability of equations to estimate stature derived from American and Taiwanese research and then established a new equation from a group of 512 Vietnamese patients aged 18 to 64 years. In this study, 512 patients were divided into 2 groups, the established equation group (n = 400, 214 men and 186 women) and the validated equation group (n = 112, 61 men and 51 women). Based on the linear regression model, the new equation is: body height = 2.12 x knee height + 59.06 (cm) in males and body height = 2.09 x knee height + 57.37 (cm) in females. We calculated the heights of patients based on their knee heights with both equations and then compared the results with their measured standing heights. The results from the American and Taiwanese knee height equations both showed that the difference was statistically significant with a P < .05 between the indirect method of stature estimation with actual body height. In contrast, the new equation was more accurate with a P > .05. Stature estimated from the new knee height equation is suitable for the Vietnamese population in clinical setting.