科研之友
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摘要
Background: Grading of acute otitis media (AOM) is important in clinical situations as well as in research. Current grading scales for AOM have used a 6 to 9 point scoring system primarily based on variation of redness and bulging of the tympanic membrane (TM). This study aimed to develop and validate a new scale for grading AOM. %26lt;br%26gt;Method: The scale was developed in 3 stages based on 32 patients with images taken of the TM when a child attended healthcare centre with othalgia and at follow-up visits. Content validity was used as the method for the first 2 stages. An expert panel reviewed the scale and repeated the process on a revised scale. Reliability was tested with a different expert panel that used the final scale on a sample of TM images in a test-retest and inter-rater and intra-rater agreements were calculated. %26lt;br%26gt;Results: The scale was developed in 3 steps using expert committees. During the process the description of vascularization was judged to be of insufficient importance for our scale. Inter-rater agreement was moderate (kappa = 0.52) and intra-rater agreement was good (kappa = 0.66 to 0.89) in the test-retest of the final scale. %26lt;br%26gt;Conclusions: The developed AOM image-based grading scale demonstrates substantial inter- and intra-rater reliability with potential use in clinical research and telemedicine applications. Furthermore, the parameter %26quot;redness of TM%26quot; is of less importance in our scale as compared with other available grading systems.
- 出版日期2013-4
