Ah. Ranhoff et K. Laake, THE BARTHEL ADL INDEX - SCORING BY THE PHYSICIAN FROM PATIENT INTERVIEW IS NOT RELIABLE, Age and ageing, 22(3), 1993, pp. 171-174
Using the Barthel index, a physician's ADL scoring based upon clinical
interviews of 59 elderly nursing-home patients was compared with the
scoring by nurses based upon observations over time (the reference met
hod). The scoring by the doctor was higher than that by the nurses (me
an score 14.3 vs 12.2), and especially so in the subgroup of patients
with a low score on the Mini-Mental Status (mean score 15.4 vs 11.1).
Use of the kappa statistics on each item of the Barthel ADL index show
ed that, in general, the agreement was poor between physician's scorin
g and the reference method. However, information collected by the phys
ician on Barthel index items reflecting mobility demonstrated fair to
good agreement among patients with a higher score on the Mini-Mental S
tatus.