Inter-rater Reliability and Validity of the Action Research Arm Test in Sub-acute Stroke Patients

This study was done to evaluate the inter-rater reliability of Action Research Arm Test in assessing hand and Arm function for Sub-acute stroke patients.

60 hemiplegic stroke patients who gave their consent for the study ware asked to perform the task and the investigator filled the scoring sheet of Action Research Arm Test. The patients were assessed by two investigators in blind fold manner.

Statistical analysis reveals that spearmans rank correlation co-efficient is level of grasp r= 0.974, grip r= 0.9896, Pinch r = 0.994 and for Grossmotor r= 0.974. The level of significance of all subscales is p=0.000. Since the correlation is between the values-5 and +5 and the level of significance is <0.05. There is strong positive correlation between the two raters.

Inter-rater reliability is found to be high, the clinical implication of this study is that this scale can be used either when two therapist treat the same patient or when the clinical data is shared and they will be able to interpret each other score without assessing the patient again.