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Optimising subjective anterior eye grading precision

Vianya-Estopa, Marta, Nagra, Manbir, Cochrane, Arnold, Retallic, Neil, Dunning, Dean, Terry, Louise ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6200-8230, Lloyd, Aoife, Lloyd, James and Wolffsoh, James S. 2020. Optimising subjective anterior eye grading precision. Contact Lens and Anterior Eye 43 (5) , pp. 489-492. 10.1016/j.clae.2020.03.006

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Abstract

Purpose To establish the optimum grading increment which ensured parity between practitioners while maximising clinical precision. Methods Second year optometry students (n = 127, 19.5 ± 1.4 years, 55 % female) and qualified eye care practitioners (n = 61, 40.2 ± 14.8 years, 52 % female) had 30 s to grade each of bulbar, limbal and palpebral hyperaemia of the upper lid of 4 patients imaged live with a digital slit lamp under 16× magnification, diffuse illumination, with the image projected on a screen. The patients were presented in a randomised sequence 3 times in succession, during which the graders used the Efron printed grading scale once to the nearest 0.1 increment, once to nearest 0.5 increment and once to the nearest integer grade in a randomised order. Graders were masked to their previous responses. Results For most grading conditions less than 20 % of clinicians showed a ≤0.1 difference in grade from the mean. In contrast, more than 50 % of the student graders and 40 % of experienced graders showed a difference in grade from the mean within 0.5 for all conditions under measurement. Student precision in grading was better with both 0.1 and 0.5 grading increments than grading to the nearest unit, except for limbal hyperaemia where they performed more accurately with 0.5 unit increment grading. Limbal grading precision was not affected by grading step increment for experienced practitioners, but 0.1 and 0.5 grading increments were both better than the 1.0 grading increment for bulbar hyperaemia and the 0.1 grading increment was better than the 0.5 grading increment and both were better than the 1.0 grading increment for palpebral hyperaemia. Conclusion Although narrower interval scales maximise the ability to detect smaller clinical changes, the grading increment should not exceed one standard deviation of the discrepancy between measurements. Therefore, 0.5 grading increments are recommended for subjective anterior eye physiology grading (limbal, bulbar and palpebral redness).

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: Optometry and Vision Sciences
Publisher: Elsevier
ISSN: 1367-0484
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 25 March 2020
Date of Acceptance: 19 March 2020
Last Modified: 06 Nov 2023 19:30
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/130560

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