TCM Research Inter-rater Reliability

[Guest guest]

Here's an abstract that describes how, with a training session, three

practitioners can actually agree on their TCM findings/diagnosis of R.A.

 

In the one study that I participated in to test inter-rater reliability, I

could see that people with different practice styles were far away from me

in diagnostics. It always seemed to me that simply sitting down with the

practitioners and having an introductory session where everybody could

calibrate their assessment of let's say what 'pink' means on a tongue, etc.

that inter-rater reliability would be improved. This study supports that

contention.

 

[source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18576921?dopt=Abstract]

 

*Improvement of Agreement in TCM Diagnosis Among TCM Practitioners for

Persons with the Conventional Diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis: Effect of

Training.*

 

J Altern Complement Med. 2008 May;14(4):381-6

 

Authors: Zhang GG, Singh B, Lee W, Handwerger B, Lao L, Berman B

 

ABSTRACT Objective: To investigate whether a training process that focused

on consensus on Traditional (TCM) diagnostic criteria will

improve the agreement of TCM diagnosis on patients with rheumatoid arthritis

(RA). Design: The design was a prospective survey. Setting: The study was

conducted at the General Clinical Research Center, University of Maryland

Hospital System, Baltimore, MD. Subjects: The participants were 42 patients

with RA. Practitioners: The practitioners included 3 licensed acupuncturists

with a minimum of 5 years' licensure and education in Chinese herbs.

Methods: A training session of TCM diagnostic procedures was conducted with

an open case discussion and " real time " practice. After the training, 3 TCM

practitioners examined the same 42 patients with RA separately. Patients

filled out a questionnaire to serve as the data for the " Inquiry " component

while physical examinations, including observations of tongue and palpation

of radial pulse, were conducted by the 3 practitioners. Each practitioner

provided a TCM diagnosis based upon the examination results. These diagnoses

were then examined with respect to the rate of agreement among the 3

practitioners. Results: The average agreement with respect to the TCM

diagnoses among the 3 pairs of TCM practitioners was 73% (64.3%-85.7%).

Statistically significant differences were found between this study and the

two previous studies (p < 0.001). Conclusions: After training focused on

consensus on TCM diagnostic criteria, we found that these 3 same TCM

practitioners who were used in phase II of the study produced a

significantly higher agreement when compared to study phase I or phase II.

Our study suggests that improved consensus on TCM diagnostic criteria

results in increased agreement of diagnosis.

 

PMID: 18576921 [PubMed - in process]

 

 

--

, DAOM

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.