OBJECTIVE
The senior authors developed a computer-assisted rapid, simultaneous comparison system for nine international grading scales for facial paralysis. The purpose of this study is to present the system and to compare the agreement of hand-performed House-Brackmann and Sunnybrook scales, two frequently used scales herein taken as the concurrent criterion test standards, with those like scales done simultaneously in the computed system.
STUDY DESIGN
The study design was a prospective concurrent criterion validity study. Test-retest reliability and interobserver agreement were assessed using the kappa statistic (k) for ordinal data and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for semidimensional data.
SETTING
The study was conducted at a university practice.
PATIENTS
Ten consecutive consenting subjects with varying degrees of facial paralysis were studied.
INTERVENTION
Each subject was measured, in random order, twice by each method by each of two independent observers.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
House-Brackmann score, Sunnybrook score, and like-scale scores done simultaneously in the computed system were measured.
RESULTS
Agreement between the computed system and hand-performed criterion standards was equal to each scale compared against itself; for the House-Brackmann, agreement was moderate (k = 0.554); for the Sunnybrook, agreement was excellent (ICC = 0.976).
CONCLUSIONS
The computed system has the advantage of allowing an examiner to view a rapid, simultaneous display of multiple grading scale scores at a keystroke from one clinical assessment input, obviating the labor of repeating measures by hand.