Inter- and Intra-rater Reliability of the Head Control Scale: Brief Report

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To examine inter-rater and intra-rater reliability of the Head Control Scale (HCS).

Methods

Introduction of the HCS to eight physical therapists in a pediatric post-acute hospital was followed by use in a repeated-measures design across two trials to establish reliability of the raters. Therapists scored the HCS twice within 4 weeks, using videos of infants at both 2 and 6 months of age, one infant described as typically developing and one with atypical development.

Results

For the HCS overall score, reliability was excellent with an inter-rater reliability intraclass correlation coefficient ((ICC) (3,1) = 0.97 (95% confidence interval, 0.899–0.998) and intra-rater reliability ICC (3,1) range = 0.815–1.0. HCS position scores between and within raters ranged from slight to substantial agreement.

Conclusion

In this small study of inter- and intra-rater reliability, HCS overall score demonstrated excellent reliability for all raters however, HCS position scores demonstrated some variability, especially for the prone position.

KEYWORDS:

• Observer variation
• psychometrics
• reproducibility of results
• infant
• motor skills

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the members of the Franciscan Children’s Hospital Physical Therapy Department who participated in the data collection for this study.

Declaration Of Interests

The authors report no conflict of interest.