BACKGROUND A reliable and valid global staging scale has been lacking within dementia care. OBJECTIVE To develop an easy-to-use multi-dimensional clinical staging schedule for dementia. METHODS The schedule was developed through: i) Two series of focus groups (40 and 48 participants, respectively) in Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and UK with a multi-disciplinary...

BACKGROUND Systematic reviews of the relationship between non-manipulated factors (e.g. low empathy) and offending are becoming more common, and it is important to consider the methodological quality of studies included in such reviews. AIMS To assess aspects of the reliability and validity of the Cambridge Quality Checklists, a set of three measures for examining the methodological quality o...

Context: During systematic literature reviews it is necessary to assess the quality of empirical papers. Current guidelines suggest that two researchers should independently apply a quality checklist and any disagreements must be resolved. However, there is little empirical evidence concerning the effectiveness of these guidelines. Aims: This paper investigates the three techniques that can be ...

In the US there were 400,000 home fires resulting in 2755 deaths, 12,450 injuries, and $6.9B lost. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the content-validity of photographs taken in the home for use as an educational instrument to teach about "safe" and "unsafe" fire safety practice for adults and older adults. A total of 73 home fire safety experts were provided 27 photographs to evaluate ...

We examined the joint interview interrater reliability of the Structured Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Personality Disorders (SIDP-IV) in 433 non-treatment-seeking military recruits. Reliability was computed for the diagnosis of a specific personality disorder (PD) and for the number of PD criteria present, and computed using a dimensional ...

OBJECTIVE To develop a taxonomy of doctors' questions about patient care that could be used to help answer such questions. DESIGN Use of 295 questions asked by Oregon primary care doctors to modify previously developed taxonomy of 1101 clinical questions asked by Iowa family doctors. SETTING Primary care practices in Iowa and Oregon. PARTICIPANTS Random samples of 103 Iowa family doctors ...

BACKGROUND Numerous different scoring systems have been proposed for assessing the severity of atopic dermatitis (AD). Many of these methods did not undergo proper validation and reliability testing. OBJECTIVE The aim of our study was to compare the reliability and reproducibility of the Eczema Area and Severity Index (EASI), objective Scoring Atopic Dermatitis (oSCORAD), and Investigator Glo...

BACKGROUND The elderly EXERNET multi-centre study aims to collect normative anthropometric data for old functionally independent adults living in Spain. PURPOSE To describe the standardization process and reliability of the anthropometric measurements carried out in the pilot study and during the final workshop, examining both intra- and inter-rater errors for measurements. MATERIALS AND ME...

BACKGROUND Recent studies of the quality of in-hospital care have used the Quality of Interaction Schedule (QuIS) to rate interactions observed between staff and inpatients in a variety of ward conditions. The QuIS was developed and evaluated in nursing and residential care. We set out to develop methodology for summarising information from inter-rater reliability studies of the QuIS in the acu...

BACKGROUND Cephalometric radiography has been used for orthodontic and surgical treatment planning and assessment, and for quantifying mandibular growth. However, it remains unclear how head positioning errors and the level of examiner experience affect the reliability of such morphometric measurements. The current study aimed to bridge the gap by determining the intra-, inter-rater, and inter-...